HEALTH: Nations Scramble to Avert Avian Flu Pandemic

The avian flu virus, which has spread from Asia to Turkey, may still have some "nasty surprises in store", a senior official of the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned Thursday.

HEALTH: Fear Advances with Human Bird Flu

Human deaths from the bird flu virus have taken a giant leap from East Asia to Turkey. Where next, if anywhere?

HEALTH: Toll Up but Indonesia Ready for Bird Flu

While the death of a man with bird-flu symptoms Monday is seen as a warning that Indonesia continues to live under the threat of a pandemic, authorities have reason to believe they are now on top of the situation.

HEALTH: Drug Resistance Leads Vietnam to Revise Bird Flu Fight

Although it has been partly successful at controlling the spread of bird flu, Vietnam is stepping up its fight against the frightening disease, starting with more cautious use of antiviral drugs.

WTO-SPECIAL: The TRIPs Traps for Health and Knowledge

The hidden story behind the final draft of the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference's declaration lies in TRIPs, or trade-related intellectual property rights.

BRAZIL: New Health Scare from Decades-Old Disease

Brazil, the world's largest exporter of chicken, has been making efforts to ease fears that bird flu could spread to Latin America. But closer to home than the H5N1 virus that has decimated flocks and killed dozens of people in Asia is the scare caused by the reemergence of spotted fever, a rare tick-borne disease with a high mortality rate.

HEALTH-CHINA: Corruption May Stymie Fowl Inoculation Drive

As China prepares to undertake a massive drive to inoculate every chicken and duck in the country against avian flu, experts are cautioning that political will and ample budgets are insufficient to accomplish this Herculean task.

HEALTH-ASIA: Farmers, Fowl or Flu?

A summit meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in South Korea, this weekend, will help clarify where in the pecking order East Asia's poultry farmers stand, as new commitments are made to fight the deadly bird flu virus.

HEALTH-VIETNAM: Bird Flu Strategy Will Hit Poultry Farmers

As Vietnam prepares a national anti-bird flu strategy that involves ruthless culling of suspect fowl, experts are concerned it could spell ruination for many small farmers.

RUSSIA: Strong Steps to Contain Bird Flu

The Russian government is taking extensive measures to contain the spread of bird flu.

HEALTH: Threats Get Vietnam Rights to Make Bird Flu Drug

Threats by Vietnam that it would begin unlicenced manufacture of the anti-viral drug 'Tamiflu', to contain a possible pandemic of bird flu, seem to have induced the patent holder Roche to grant the country the right to produce the drug locally.

HEALTH: Bird Flu Infects US, China Ties

Amid global fears that a deadly bird flu virus sweeping through bird flocks in Asia could mutate into a human flu that could kill millions, preparedness to handle a possible worldwide outbreak is becoming the new front of cooperation for the United States and China.

HEALTH: UN Experts Seek Global Fund to Fight Bird Flu

Nearly half a billion dollars is needed to choke off avian flu at its source, but just 30 million is currently available to fight the disease, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation.

HEALTH: World Bank Gets Cold Feet on Bird Flu Drug Patent

Suddenly, in the face of a possible global pandemic of bird flu, the World Bank is developing signs of cold feet. It is choosing to distance itself from the role it has carved out over decades as an advocate of policies to ''help'' developing countries.

HEALTH-VIETNAM: Factory Fowl No Answer to Bird Flu

Tuan bought his first 50 chicks less than a month ago, hoping to supplement a meager family income from selling coal and the sewing that his wife does.

HEALTH-DRC: An Epidemic Waiting to Happen

A vast forested valley stretches out below the office of Jose Mpindi, an ornithologist at the University of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

HEALTH-ASIA: Bird Flu, Fearsome but Fickle

Despite the doomsday scenarios being painted in sections of the media, now that Europe has detected its first signs of bird flu, the virus concerned has left only a small signature in Asia, during a career that began in January 2004.

HEALTH: Generic Drugs Only Answer to Bird Flu in Asia

Despite concerns raised by leading medical researchers, an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting next week on a potential avian influenza pandemic is unlikely to discuss the need to accelerate production by generic manufacturers of crucial anti-viral drugs.

HEALTH-EUROPE: Flu on the Wing of Migratory Birds

Oct 26 Following the first outbreaks of bird flu in Turkey, Romania, Greece and Russia, the European Union is stepping up health controls, while environmentalists are pushing for a ban on bird hunting, based on evidence that migratory species are the main vectors of the virus.

HEALTH: China Puts Tackling Bird Flu Before Trade

China, once accused of concealing the spread of SARS epidemic, has pledged to close it borders should any case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu be found inside the country.

HEALTH: Bird Flu Brings Out Double Standards on Drug Patents

With hardly a hint of shame, voices from the Western world's political establishment are exhibiting a view that seems to say that the lives of people in the developed world matter more than those that populate the South.