Current human death rate from the H5N1 strain is 58.5% (236 cases, 138 deaths).  Four additional cases have been reported since the last update.  Two of the four new cases are from Indonesia.  One of the cases was a 16 year old male from the West Java Province, with known exposure to H5 positive birds.  The second case was a 17 year old female from the Jakarta province.  An investigation into her source of infection found that pet pigeons were kept inside her home and that several neighboring households maintained flocks of backyard poultry. Animal health authorities have collected samples from birds in the neighborhood and these will be tested as part of the continuing investigation.
Thailand experienced its second H5N1 case of 2006 within 2 weeks of the first case.  This second case developed symptoms after 1 week of household flocks becoming ill.  The final case is actually a retrospective confirmed H5N1 case from 2003 in China.  Confirmation of this case provides the earliest known case on mainland China.  This case was originally thought to be a SARS case, but laboratory tests recently confirmed that this case was indeed an H5N1 case.

The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior today announced that routine surveillance has indicated the presence of H5 and N1 avian influenza subtypes in samples from two wild mute swans in Michigan, but testing has ruled out the possibility of this being the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that has spread through birds in Asia, Europe and Africa. Test results thus far indicate this is low pathogenicity avian influenza, which poses no threat to human health.

The USDA and DOI announced on August 9 that the lower 48 states will begin monitoring migratory birds for the H5N1 influenza strain.  Because wild migratory birds are not controlled by boundaries and are found throughout the United States, USDA and DOI are teaming up with states to collect 75,000 to 100,000 wild bird samples along with 50,000 environmental samples throughout the United States, including Alaska, the lower 48 states, and Hawaii, Guam, U.S. Pacific Territories and Freely Associated States.

WHO Laboratory Confirmed H5N1 Human Cases As of 8/09/06

Total number of cases includes number of deaths.
WHO reports only laboratory-confirmed cases.

Read more What's New with the Bird Flu? articles . . .