| ■ Avian Flu Returns, This Time in Hong Kong Poultry | 2009.01.16 |
| Avian flu is back, not that it had ever been entirely eradicated. New cases of the H5N1 flu virus -- the type that caused the destruction of entire flocks of fowl in previous years -- has resurfaced in Hong Kong poultry, the Los Angeles Times reported, adding to reported human cases at the end of 2008 in Indonesia, Egypt and Cambodia. Two human deaths also were reported -- a 16-year-old Egyptian girl and a 2-year-old Cambodian girl, the newspaper reported, and other human cases of H5N1 were cited in Indonesia, long a hotbed of avian flu. However, as with all other cases involving humans, there was no indication of the virus being spread from person-to-person, a circumstance scientists have long feared could create a worldwide pandemic. |