http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0308/flu.html
Belgian man may have bird flu
08 March 2006 16:09<?xml:namespace prefix = rte /><rte:body>
A Belgian man who returned from China three days ago has been admitted to hospital with the symptoms of bird flu.
However, Belgian health officials said it was a possible case of bird flu rather than a probable one.
And Albania has become the latest European country to report a case of H5N1. The virus was detected in a chicken in the southern Sarande coastal region, close to the border with Greece.
In China, a nine-year-old girl has died of bird flu. She was the country's tenth known death from the virus.
The World Health Organisation says action is needed now to prepare for a pandemic of flu, before it can mutate into a form that will pass between humans.
This afternoon, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health warned that Australia, Canada and the US stand a very high risk of seeing cases of the current bird flu.
Those three countries have so far escaped being caught up in the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which originated in Asia in 2003 but which has since spread to the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Turkey and Europe.
Most affected countries have recorded the deadly disease only in birds, though nearly 100 people have died in Asia and Turkey, and a few cats in Germany and Austria have also been diagnosed with it.
</rte:body>
Belgian man may have bird flu
08 March 2006 16:09<?xml:namespace prefix = rte /><rte:body>
A Belgian man who returned from China three days ago has been admitted to hospital with the symptoms of bird flu.
However, Belgian health officials said it was a possible case of bird flu rather than a probable one.
And Albania has become the latest European country to report a case of H5N1. The virus was detected in a chicken in the southern Sarande coastal region, close to the border with Greece.
In China, a nine-year-old girl has died of bird flu. She was the country's tenth known death from the virus.
The World Health Organisation says action is needed now to prepare for a pandemic of flu, before it can mutate into a form that will pass between humans.
This afternoon, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health warned that Australia, Canada and the US stand a very high risk of seeing cases of the current bird flu.
Those three countries have so far escaped being caught up in the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which originated in Asia in 2003 but which has since spread to the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Turkey and Europe.
Most affected countries have recorded the deadly disease only in birds, though nearly 100 people have died in Asia and Turkey, and a few cats in Germany and Austria have also been diagnosed with it.
</rte:body>
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