20 May 2013 (14:01 UTC-07 Tango)/10 Rajab 1434/30 Ordibehest 1392/11 Ding-Si (4th month) 4711

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea reporting that H5N1 bird flu has struck their poultry industry hard.  They’ve had to cull (kill) 160000 ducks, at just one Pyongyang duck farm, to try and stop the spread of the virus.  United Nations health officials were notified.

Here’s some more news to make you more fearful of the creation of new biological weapons: Chen Hualan, of China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, has discovered a single gene that can make bird flus easily become deadly human flus.  She found that one of two genes from the human version of H1N1 made the bird flu H5N1 infectious to animals other than birds.

Vietnam recently declared their H5N1 epidemic fini.  Health officials report no new cases in birds or humans for the past 21 days, thanks to efforts to cull or vaccinate tens of thousands of birds.  Since 2003, 62 people in Vietnam died from H5N1, the most recent being a four years old boy in April.  123 people got sick.

Animal health officials in Nepal have been culling poultry, as two new H5N1 outbreaks hit Kathmandu.  Outbreak response teams are overstretched and officials said they are unable to respond to the latest outbreak.

Indonesia has been put on warning for new H7N9 infections.  Researchers at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture studied how farmers keep their livestock, and concluded that current Indonesian livestock practices have the potential “….to facilitate the spread of the H7N9 virus.” 

China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission claims that no new cases of H7N9 ‘bird’ flu have been reported.  However, in a joint study by  National Health and Family Planning Commission, and the UN World Health Organization, researchers are now concerned that not only has the virus evolved to spread human to human, but that possibly thousands of people are now carriers, showing little or no symptoms.

The Mexican state of Puebla has been hit with H7N3.   The National Service of Health, Food Safety and Food Quality say the source is laying chickens brought in from surrounding states.  So far 55000 chickens have been culled.  33 million doses of vaccine have been issued.  The United Nations has been notified.