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By Category: Policy & Initiatives

Influenza: Five questions on H5N1

(Nature) The biology of the H5N1 avian influenza virus is rife with paradoxes. The virus is widespread, but hard to detect. It kills more than half of the people known to be infected, but thousands of those exposed have no apparent problems. It seems to be just a few mutations away from gaining the ability  Read More »

Pandemic Flu Risk Raised by Lax Hog-Farm Surveillance

(Wired.com) The great lesson of the 2009 influenza pandemic was that new, deadly flu strains wouldn’t necessarily emerge from the pathogenic hotbox of an Asian animal market. They could start in the western world’s own backyard, percolating from the incubators of modern farms. Yet despite the fact that pig farms hosted, and arguably fueled, the  Read More »

President Khama Visits Namibia

(AllAfrica.com) Windhoek — President Hifikepunye Pohamba yesterday said the planned relocation of De Beers Diamond Trading Company from London to Gaborone is a step in the right direction, since this will add more value in skills development and technology transfer to Southern Africa. Pohamba said this yesterday at the beginning of the three-day state visit  Read More »

Congressman criticises US handling of H5N1 papers

(Nature.com) An influential member of the US Congress remains dissatisfied with the government’s handling of two research papers on mutant forms of avian influenza, and is threatening legislation to control the controversial research. Jim Sensenbrenner (Republican, Wisconsin) today said that the lack of a cohesive policy for handling risky research funded by the National Institutes  Read More »

Freeze on mutant-flu research set to thaw

(Nature) If you thought that the controversy was over, think again. Last week’s publication of the second of two papers describing how to make mammalian-transmissible forms of the H5N1 avian influenza virus merely closes one chapter of a smouldering debate about the risks of the research. That debate seems certain to reignite in the coming  Read More »

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