Greetings.

Today, the main story in the news is the reporting of the 40th human fatality from AI in Indonesia (approximately 200 articles found by Google in English, Spanish, French and German combined, which is low/moderate coverage of an AI event). Stories both simply report the 40th death and others go on to warn that sporadic deaths will continue in Indonesia, given current conditions there. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Govt is planning three different exercises in the next two months to test how different provincial authorities will respond to an outbreak of AI.

Elsewhere in Asia, a seven year-old girl has been taken to hospital in Thailand with what may be H5N1 infection (she comes from an area where 2000 poultry have died recently), while foreign Ministers of the Acmecs group (Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar) have agreed on a plan to fight avian influenza and other communicable diseases. The plan focuses on information sharing and training in pandemic preparedness.

Also in the news today is quite a bit of news in Africa:

• An ostrich was discovered with what was at first feared to be H5N1 in South Africa. This led to the swift culling of 60 ostriches at the same farm. The reaction from the press there seems to be that everyone was happy with the swiftness of the response. It has now been confirmed that the strain of influenza virus in question was H5N2.
• In Nigeria, amid rumours of a new AI outbreak in poultry in Taraba state, the President of the country has moved to dismiss these reports.
• In Ivory Coast, authorities began a "new phase" in the fight against AI on 29 June, moving to vaccinate 338,000 head of poultry.

Note that the UN News Centre has apparently reproduced WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Record analysis of epidemiological data on all laboratory-confirmed H5N1 cases officially reported to WHO from December 2003 to 30 April 2006 with a headline to the effect that the risk of bird flu evolving into a more transmissible agent in humans remains high, based on the widespread distribution of the H5N1 virus in poultry and the continued exposure of humans. This story, with this headline, is getting picked up, and is causing concern, as witness in the attachment articles from an Indian website/media outlet, and the Nation newspaper in Thailand. The Nation does note that "the WHO is doing its best to strike a delicate balance between not causing a worldwide panic and the need to prompt the international community to prepare for if and when the now-sporadic human bird-flu cases become a pandemic."

Also in today's attachment:

• An article from West Palm Beach, Florida, highlights how even in the United States, illicit trade in poultry is a potential cause for concern as the agent for the spread of H5N1
• The UK's Royal Society publishes a paper on how to communicate the results of new scientific studies to the public.

Gregory Härtl