NEWS SCAN: Egypt’s H5N1 toll grows, new H5N1 recombinant vaccine virus, Vietnam gets avian flu supplies (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) WHO confirms H5N1 infections in pair of Egyptian 4-year-olds The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed two recently reported H5N1 avian influenza infections in Egyptian children. One of the patients is a 4-year-old boy from Hehia City in Sharkia governorate. [News Source]

Scientists develop new basis for H5N1 vaccine (Reuters) (Yahoo!7 World News) GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists have used bird flu virus samples from Egypt to develop a new basis for a vaccine against the toxic H5N1 strain that continues to circulate, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday. [News Source]

Scientists develop new basis for H5N1 vaccine: WHO (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Scientists have used bird flu virus samples from Egypt to develop a new basis for a vaccine against the toxic H5N1 strain that continues to circulate, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. [News Source]

Official swine flu figures are just ‘tip of the iceberg’, warn health experts. Swine flu is far more widespread than official figures suggest and is causing the severest illness in children, young adults and pregnant women, international evidence shows. [News Source]

Swine flu attention turns to the tropics. New flu strains are more likely to arise in equatorial countries, where influenza is present the year round and surveillance is poor. [News Source]

Scientists develop basis for bird flu vaccine (Reuters) (Yahoo!7 World News) GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists using virus samples from Egypt have developed the basis of a vaccine against H5N1 bird flu, which is more toxic than the H1N1 swine flu strain but spreads less easily, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday. [News Source]

Scientists develop new basis for H5N1 vaccine-WHO (AlertNet) Source: Reuters (Adds details, background) GENEVA, May 28 (Reuters) - Scientists have used bird flu virus samples from Egypt to develop a new basis for a vaccine against the toxic H5N1 strain that continues to ... [News Source]

Scientists develop basis for bird flu vaccine-WHO (AlertNet) Source: Reuters GENEVA, May 28 (Reuters) - Scientists using virus samples from Egypt have developed the basis of a vaccine against H5N1 bird flu, which is more toxic than the H1N1 swine flu strain but spreads less ... [News Source]

NEWS SCAN: H5N1 in Egypt and Mongolia, conflict threatens polio efforts, E coli in bottled water, yellow fever … (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) Egypt reports H5N1 in two more children Egypt's health ministry, in a statement to the country's news agency, yesterday reported two more H5N1 avian influenza infections, both in 4-year-old children, Reuters reported. [News Source]

Bird flu virus remains infectious up to 600 days in municipal landfills (PhysOrg) Amid concerns about a pandemic of swine flu, researchers from Nebraska report for the first time that poultry carcasses infected with another threat - the 'bird flu' virus - can remain infectious in municipal landfills for almost 2 years. Their report is scheduled for the June 15 issue of ACS` semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology. [News Source]

Epidemics, fearsome and fascinating. You have probably had your fill by now of swine flu, bird flu, flu of all descriptions. But there will unquestionably be more words--many more. An insatiable fascination with contagious illness is hard-wired into all of us--as two new books make clear. [News Source]

Bird flu confirmed in two Egyptian children (Russian Information Agency Novosti) CAIRO, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - A girl and a boy, both aged four, have been diagnosed with bird flu in the north Egyptian Sharqia Governorate, the MENA news agency reported. [News Source]