Bird Flu Hits Europe, France Raises Checks to Counter Virus

Several European countries have reported outbreaks of a severe strain of bird flu, the World Organisation for Animal Health said on Thursday, while France raised safety checks to counter the virus which can have a major impact on farmers. The World Health Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said Germany, Austria, Croatia and Switzerland had all officially reported the outbreaks, which concerned a particularly virulent strain affecting wild birds. France’s Agriculture Ministry added in a statement that the highly pathogenic H5N8 virus had been found in wild birds in Hungary, Poland,…

Read More

Bird Flu: Centre Asks NIHSAD to Expedite Testing of Samples

Stepping up measures to control bird flu, the Centre today directed Bhopal-based National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) to expedite testing of samples of birds for avian influenza virus detection and help states to prevent spread of the disease. Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) has also been asked to carry out genome studies and sequencing of the new Virus H5N8 to know the source of the origin of the infection, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. This was communicated in a meeting called by Animal Husbandry…

Read More

Health Weekly Roundup; India declares itself free of bird flu, 1.4m lives lost in India due to air pollution in ’13, Painkillers are not advisable for dengue

Here is this week’s aggregation of the latest news stories on health, fitness and diet. This week was packed with important health-related discoveries. To make sure you don’t miss any, here is this week’s aggregation of the latest news stories on health, fitness and diet. India declares itself free of bird flu Bird flu mainly affects domestic poultry. It spreads from infected birds to other winged creatures through contact with nasal and respiratory secretions and also due to contamination of feed and wate 1.4m lives lost in India due to…

Read More