Greetings.

The main story getting coverage today, according to Google, is the reporting on the WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record analysis of epidemiological data on all laboratory-confirmed H5N1 cases officially reported to WHO from December 2003 to 30 April 2006. There have been just over 200 stories so far on this topic (all in English so far, with no stories found in French, Spanish or German by Google - although one would assume that the relevant news agencies would have published in these other languages). This is a low/moderate level of coverage for an AI topic. The coverage has been largely generated by wire services re-transmitting the story, and by the New York Times' story being picked up by other newspapers (see two articles at beginning of attachment on the NYT article).

• The NYT article focuses on the fact that H5N1 seems to hit children, as did the 1918 influenza pandemic.
• An article by the Canadian Helen Branswell, who is one of the most knowledgeable journalists around on AI, focuses on H5N1 affected young adults.

No other subject receives much coverage today. The two-most covered subjects otherwise today both concern new animal outbreaks:

Other subjects in today's attachment include:

• AI has now been reported in 53 countries, according to the US Secretary for Health and Human Services
• AI scares are affecting chicken consumption in Zambia (the normal pattern of drop in chicken consumption in the initial phases of an AI outbreak, rumoured or actual, is repeating itself here)
• A new Chinese media law would require newspapers to first gain permission from local authorities before they report on emergencies
• Three stories on AI vaccines:
• Researchers combating the feared pandemic of bird flu said they were exploring exciting new avenues in the quest for a vaccine but feared hitting a roadblock, as production of the precious molecule could fall way short of need in a crisis. "We lack the manufacturing capacity to make enough doses of vaccines for the 1.2 billion people who may be at risk in a pandemic," Suryaprakash Sambhara, a researcher with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned a conference in Paris.
• At the same conference, avian flu experts were told that a viable vaccine against the human form of the disease could take 10 years to develop.
• Thailand has stocked up 1.5 million capsules of Oseltamivir drug to cope with possible spread of bird-flu virus, a senior public health official said Thursday.
• An article from the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung which talks about the storm whipped up by AI (unnecessarily, the author intimates) earlier in the year, how that has now disappeared, to be replaced by the newest animal story - on saving bears. This cynicism about AI in the German press is something which appears to be increasing and should be guarded against, as it could mean that many people there will not believe/may be unprepared for any new outbreaks of AI in the autumn.

Gregory Härtl