Thursday, 17 February, 2005, 13:45 GMT

Bird flu cases 'underestimated'

The virus is usually passed to humans from infected birds
The spread of the deadly bird flu virus may have been underestimated because of a misunderstanding of how it affects the body, British scientists have said.
Oxford University experts studying deaths in Vietnam suggest the disease can attack all parts of the body, not just the lungs as had been thought.

They told the New England Journal of Medicine they also believe humans could pass the virus on to each other.

So far, there have been 42 bird flu deaths, all in Asian countries.

But the Oxford University scientists say their findings suggests the number of cases of human infection with the virus may have been under-estimated.

When someone is suffering from any severe illness we should consider if avian flu might be the cause

Dr Menno de Jong

Q&A: Avian flu
The World Health Organization said it would change its definition of what constituted a bird flu infection.

So far, the WHO says there have been 55 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans, and 42 deaths.

However, experts believe millions could be at risk if the virus acquires the ability to jump from person to person by combining with a form of human flu to make a new, mutated, version.

The researchers examined the deaths of two young children - a brother and sister - who lived in a single room with their parents in southern Vietnam.

They were admitted to hospital suffering from gastro-enteritis and acute encephalitis, which are common ailments in the country.

Neither displayed respiratory problems, which have been considered typical in cases of avian flu.

Widespread attack

But analysis revealed the four-year-old boy had traces of the virus in his faeces, blood, nose and in the fluid around the brain.

AVIAN FLU
Cambodia - 1 case, 1 death
Thailand - 17 cases, 12 deaths
Vietnam - 37 cases, 29 deaths

This indicates the virus - known as H5N1 - can attack all parts of the body, not just the lungs.

It is suspected his nine-year-old sister, who died two weeks earlier in February last year, was also suffering from the virus.

The lead researcher is Dr Menno de Jong, a virologist at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit who is based at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh.

He said: "This illustrates that when someone is suffering from any severe illness we should consider if avian flu might be the cause.

"It may be possible to treat but you have to act in the early stages, so awareness of the whole spectrum of symptoms in an emerging disease like avian flu is vital.

"It appears this virus is progressively adapting to an increasing range of mammals in which it can cause infection, and the range of disease in humans is wide and clearly includes encephalitis."

Different manifestations

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust's Vietnam unit, said: "This latest work underlines the possibility that avian influenza can present itself in different ways.

"The main focus has been on patients with respiratory illnesses but clearly that's not the only thing we should be looking for.

"Therefore the number of cases of H5N1 may have been underestimated."

Dr Farrar said the presence of the virus in the faeces suggested that it could be spread from person to person - especially where people are living in crowded conditions.

It is not believed that either of the children passed the virus on, but it is also not clear how they contracted it.

However, the girl often swam in a nearby canal which may have been contaminated by ducks carrying the virus.

Dick Thompson, of the World Health Organization, told the BBC the findings were significant.

He said: "It means the range of illnesses we have been looking for when considering a diagnosis of avian flu will now be expanded.

"We will have to change the way we conduct our investigations, the management of hospital patients and even the way we deal with their bodily secretions."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4270755.stm

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/regionalnews/story/2005/02/050217_birdflu_widespread.shtml

Yahoo! News Thu, Feb 6:38am 17, 2005

Mysterious Lobster Shell Disease Spreading


2 hours, 11 minutes ago Science - AP

By RICHARD C. LEWIS, Associated Press Writer

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. - A disease that rots lobsters' shells and can kill the crustaceans now affects 30 percent of lobsters along the New England coast, decimating the industry in many areas, scientists said Wednesday.

The disease's cause and how it spreads remain a mystery, though theories are emerging and the scientists said they will seek state and federal money for further studies.

The disease does not taint the lobsters' meat, but makes the shells too unsightly to serve whole. It can weaken lobsters so much that some die prematurely.

Researchers in the region first noticed shell disease in the 1980s, with shells marked by little black spots. But in recent years, the researchers said, shells have become fully enveloped by the disease, and in the worst cases have rotted entirely.

Scientists said trawl and trap studies show egg-carrying females are most susceptible to the disease. The studies also show lobsters living in warmer waters appear to contract the disease more readily.

Hans Laufer, a professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at the University of Connecticut, said he believes lobsters may contract the disease from alkylphenols, chemicals that are byproducts from industrial sources.

Laufer stressed that his studies were just preliminary.

Another scientist, Roxanna Smolowitz of the marine biological laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., said bacteria attach themselves to the lobster's shell and begin to penetrate inward.


In 1999, the lobster industry in Rhode Island generated $30 million and employed 425 fisherman, according to Mark Gibson of the state Department of Environmental Management. Four years later, the industry produced $16.7 million and employed 279.

"Something's happening before they get to us, and that's what we need to know," said Mike Merchant, president of the Rhode Island Lobsterman's Association.

The symposium was hosted by the University of Rhode Island's Sea Grant program.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1894&ncid=1894&e=3&u=/ap/20050217/ap_on_sc/lobster_shell_disease

Thursday, 24 February, 2005, 12:42 GMT

Action urged to combat bird flu

Health officials have urged governments to do more to fight a bird flu outbreak that could affect people.
UN experts at a conference in Vietnam said there was still time to prevent the virus from spreading to humans.

But one UN official called the response from donors and governments so far "glaringly insufficient".

He said the international community needed to spend at least $100m (£52m) to fight the virus - five times more than the sum donated last year.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4293845.stm

Thursday, 7 October, 2004, 05:02 GMT 06:02 UK

Killer flu recreated in the lab

Some experts believe a flu pandemic is overdue
Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions.
A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain known to have no effect on mice.

Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.

The research is published in the journal Nature.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3719990.stm

Tuesday, 22 February, 2005, 16:00 GMT

Science wary of bird flu threat
By Fergus Walsh BBC Medical Correspondent

The isolation ward of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City stands empty.
They have not had a patient with avian flu here for three weeks.

Doctors hope the warmer weather means this year's outbreak in humans is over.

But large parts of Vietnam are still reporting cases in poultry so no-one is letting their guard down.

The hospital is a mix of old and new. The isolation ward is a relic from the original hospital built by the French in the 19th century.

The unit will be torn down later this year and replaced with modern facilities.

But the research laboratories are in a new block and more spacious than most you would find in the UK.

The battle against bird flu involves a Vietnamese team led by Dr Tran Tinh Hien.

Working alongside them is Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the University of Oxford Clinical Research Unit, which is part-funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Dr Farrar has been in Vietnam for nine years and well remembers the first patient with bird flu from the outbreak last year.

Unusual case

He said: "I was called at home by Dr Hien the night before Tet began in January 2004.

"Tet is the New Year festival and it's a very big event in Vietnam, and everyone wants to be with their family."

Dr Farrar has seen patients deteriorate rapidly
But Dr Hien was worried about a four-year-old girl he had been asked to visit who had severe respiratory problems.

A hunch told Dr Hien that this was not a case of normal flu.

The girl was admitted to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and she was treated with anti-virals, which are effective against avian flu if administered early. She survived.

It later emerged that the family kept a pet duck.

"The duck was the girl's pride and joy and she used to cuddle it.

"When it got sick the little girl buried it, but she couldn't bear to be parted with it so she had dug it up again."

In 2004 the hospital treated eight patients with avian flu. Three survived.

Aggressive virus

Since the beginning of this year it has dealt with nine confirmed cases. All of the patients died.

Nowhere else has seen so many patients with avian flu.

Dr Hien said the disease is incredibly aggressive: "The problem is that most patients are referred when it's too late.

"The hospital has all the equipment and drugs it needs to treat avian flu, but these are of little use if the disease has taken hold."

The course of the disease can be incredibly rapid.

Dr Farrar said: "We saw a patient down at a hospital in the Mekong Delta, who was sitting up in bed having breakfast and was able to tell her story.

"We transferred her to our unit but by the evening she was dead."

Widespread

And it appears the disease may be more widespread than previously thought.

This follows the deaths last year of two Vietnamese children reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The isolation ward is empty for now
A four-year-old boy was hospitalised with severe diarrhoea, but no apparent respiratory problems.

He died of encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), which is common in south-east Asia.

No-one suspected avian influenza but by luck doctors took samples and found the virus throughout much of his body.

It suggests that the virus has the power to attack not just the lungs, but the brain and digestive system.

The boy's nine-year-old sister died in similar circumstances two weeks earlier and it is assumed she had avian flu but no samples had been taken.

Doctors in Vietnam have been advised to be on the alert for severe illnesses or unexplained deaths of any kind, which may now be attributable to avian flu.

Potential for disaster

What the world wants to know is whether avian flu might one day present a global threat.

To do that it would have to be easily transmissible from human to human.

So far, thankfully, that hasn't happened.

There is one probable case - a mother in Thailand is believed to have caught the virus from her sick child - but it involved an unusually high level of contact.

The woman held her dying daughter in her arms for many hours until the girl vomited and died.

But history suggests it is only a matter of time before the next flu pandemic.

The outbreak of 1918 (Spanish flu) killed up to 50m people.

There were further pandemics in 1957 (Asian flu) which killed one million people and in 1968 (Hong Kong flu) which killed 800,000.

It is possible that the H5N1 avian flu virus will not be responsible for the next pandemic, but then it is possible that it will. No-one knows.

Dr Farrar said: "If this virus retained its aggressive, nasty side and developed the ability to go from me to you and through you on your plane back to London, then you are looking at huge numbers of people dying as we probably have no pre-existing immunity to this virus.

"It would be a global disaster."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4286557.stm

Friday, 25 February, 2005, 04:06 GMT

Vietnam reports new bird flu case

Vietnam has reported its first case of bird flu to affect a human in more than three weeks.
Doctors say a 21-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Hanoi suffering from fever, respiratory problems, and liver failure.

Thirteen people have died of bird flu in Vietnam since the start of this year.

Vietnam has promised an international conference it will overhaul its poultry industry to try to stamp out bird flu.

The UN-sponsored meeting heard an appeal for extra money from the Food and Agriculture Organization. Only $18m was given last year, when the FAO estimated $100m was required.


( H5N1 BIRD FLU VIRUS
Principally an avian disease, first seen in humans in Hong Kong, 1997
Almost all human cases thought to be contracted from birds
Isolated cases of human-to-human transmission in Hong Kong and Vietnam, but none confirmed......)


"There have been a few donors, but again given the size of the problem it is just glaringly insufficient," said the FAO's Samuel Jutzi.

The World Health Organization wants animals to be raised separately, and for birds to be kept in pens so that they cannot mix with wildfowl, who are believed to be the main carriers of the disease.

There is particular concern about ducks, who can carry the disease with no apparent symptoms.

Thailand is to slaughter about 2.7m free-range ducks.

Sibling sickness

The latest Vietnamese victim, from Thai Binh province in the north of the country is in a serious state.

"His condition is worsening and he is expected to be hooked to a respirator later today," said Nguyen Thi Tuong Van of Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi.

The victim's 14-year-old sister is also in hospital with a high fever, and is being tested for bird flu.

The two had both eaten poultry during Lunar New Year celebrations earlier this month.

Vietnam has seen bird flu outbreaks in 35 of its 64 provinces. A man died of the disease in Thai Binh in January after drinking raw duck's blood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4296495.stm

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Tuesday, 8 March, 2005, 12:08 GMT

Tests show bird flu cases missed

Seven Vietnamese who initially tested negative for bird flu have now been found to have carried the virus, the World Health Organization has said.

All seven patients have since recovered from the disease.

A WHO scientist in Hanoi, Peter Horby, said further support for Vietnam's laboratories was needed in order to "make sure quality control is good".

Bird flu has killed 46 people in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia since December 2003.

Specimens from the seven patients were originally tested in Vietnamese laboratories, but were then retested in Japan, where the virus was detected.

"There's no doubt. The WHO accepts that we are missing cases. It's quite possible that some people are falling sick and their symptoms are very light and they don't end up in hospital," said WHO regional spokesman Peter Cordingley.

H5N1 BIRD FLU VIRUS

"It's also possible that they have a very light viral load, and Vietnamese tests may not be sensitive to pick it up," he added.

His colleague, Peter Horby, said the finding underlined the need for support for Vietnam's laboratories.

But he stressed that there had not been any problems with Vietnamese results before.

"It could just be a problem with one lab," he said.

The news comes a day after another Vietnamese citizen tested positive for bird flu.

The man, a 26-year-old nurse, had looked after a patient suffering from bird flu, but it was not clear whether he had contracted the disease this way, or from infected poultry.

The patient he nursed is thought to have caught bird flu from eating raw duck's blood last month, as did his 14-year-old sister. State media says the pair are recovering.

The resurgence of bird flu has renewed scientists' fears that the virus could mutate into a form which is easily spread from human to human.

The World Health Organization warned last month of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic".

During an international conference on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam promised to overhaul its poultry industry, as part of efforts to stamp out bird flu.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4328753.stm

Wednesday, 9 March, 2005, 13:08 GMT


Concern at Vietnam bird flu cases



Two elderly Vietnamese people who are related to victims of bird flu have themselves contracted the disease, according to local health officials.
The new cases, neither of which had shown any symptoms, will add to concerns the disease may be spreading more readily between humans.

Experts are worried the virus could eventually combine with human flu and risk a deadly pandemic.

Bird flu has killed at least 46 people in South East Asia since December 2003.

"We are aware of these [new] cases and we are investigating this further," a World Health Organization spokeswoman said.

One of the new cases, a 61-year-old woman whose husband died of bird flu, had no other known contact with the disease.

"She said she ate only pork and all four chickens raised in her house tested negative for bird flu," an official at the health clinic in her village in Thai Binh province told Reuters.

Survivor's story

The other case, an 81-year-old man, is the grandfather of two teenage siblings who also have the disease.

It was not clear if he caught the disease from contact with infected poultry or with his grandchildren.

A 26-year-old nurse who looked after one of the teenagers is also now sick with bird flu.

The fact that the widow and the grandfather are apparently healthy, despite testing positive for the disease, suggests that there could be more bird flu cases than previously thought.

This concern was also raised on Tuesday, when the WHO announced that seven Vietnamese who initially tested negative for bird flu had now been found to have carried the virus.

"There's no doubt. The WHO accepts that we are missing cases. It's quite possible that some people are falling sick and their symptoms are very light and they don't end up in hospital," said WHO regional spokesman Peter Cordingley.

The World Health Organization warned last month of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic".

During an international conference on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam promised to overhaul its poultry industry, as part of efforts to stamp out bird flu.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4332187.stm

Sunday, 13 March, 2005, 16:09 GMT

Experts say the bird flu will mutate with a human flu
Government plans to tackle a predicted bird flu pandemic have been attacked by a scientist who fears an outbreak could kill two million people in the UK.
Professor Hugh Pennington, president of the Society for General Microbiology, criticised ministers' "optimism" and said a vaccine needs to be ordered now.

Experts predict bird flu will mutate with human flu leading to a pandemic.

The government says its plans to tackle an outbreak - which include stockpiling antiviral drugs - are comprehensive.

Bird flu has killed at least 47 people in South East Asia over 15 months and there are suspected cases of the virus being passed between humans.

The World Health Organization (WHO) fears 100 million people could be killed worldwide - the 1918 pandemic killed 50 million, including more than 200,000 in the UK.

'No stopping it'

Professor Pennington, who says the 2 million death toll is an estimate, said: "They (the government) are being very optimistic about how they see it developing over the next year or two.

"We know that the virus, when it gets into people - which doesn't happen very often but has happened in the Far East - is very, very lethal, much more than the ordinary kind of flu virus that we're used to," he told BBC News 24.

"If it does that and it keeps this ability to kill, where it kills between 60% and 80% of the people it infects, that's were these big numbers of deaths come from."

In an interview with the Independent on Sunday, he said the government hoped the problem would "go away" and likened its attitude to the BSE crisis.

The UK continues to be at the forefront of preparations internationally for pandemic influenza Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah

Former health minister Edwina Curry, forced to resign after warning of the risk of salmonella in eggs, said the government should listen.

"If you are going to protect people you need to do it now," she said.

"If I were the health minister I would have a meeting tomorrow morning and I would be vaccinating people, for example, in the health service by the end of the week. I would rather be ready."

No vaccine

However, BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh said Professor Pennington's estimation could be too low.

He said, based on WHO estimates that one in four Britons could become infected and a mortality rate of 75%, the figure would be about 11 million.

The government says vaccines cannot be prepared for any human-to-human outbreak as it is not known what form the virus would take and how it would mutate.

But Prof Pennington said the structure of the virus had not changed a great deal in recent years and countries such as the US were already ordering supplies.

He said that while it may never be needed, Britain could get stuck "in a queue" for a vaccine if it waits too long.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson has previously said: "The plan set out recently outlines many other steps which will be needed to reduce the pandemic's impact.

"The NHS and the government are taking steps to ensure we are as well prepared as we can be to cope with this."

'High quality plan'

As well as ordering 14.6 million doses of antiviral drug - enough for a quarter of the population - the Department of Health action plan includes quarantine measures and arrangements for the emergency services.

Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, assistant director general for communicable diseases at the WHO, said: "From an initial review of the document, I note that this is a high quality plan.

"It shows that the UK continues to be at the forefront of preparations internationally for pandemic influenza."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4345079.stm

Monday, 14 March, 2005, 13:06 GMT

Korean dish 'may cure bird flu'
By David Chazan
BBC News

South Korea's spicy fermented cabbage dish, kimchi, could help to cure bird flu, according to researchers.

Scientists at Seoul National University say they fed an extract of kimchi to 13 infected chickens - and a week later 11 of them had started recovering.

The researchers said the results were far from scientifically proven and if kimchi did have the effects they observed, it was unclear why.

South Koreans are reported to be eating more kimchi as a result of the study.

"I'm eating kimchi these days because I've heard in the media that it helps prevent bird flu infections," one man said.

Love it or loathe it, once you have eaten it, you will never forget it. Kimchi is made by fermenting cabbage with red peppers, radishes and a lot of garlic and ginger.

The idea that it could help poultry to fight off bird flu sounds like a dubious folk remedy.

But the theory is being floated by some of Korea's most eminent scientists.

"We found that the chickens recovered from bird flu, Newcastle disease and bronchitis. The birds' death rate fell, they were livelier and their stools became normal," said Professor Kang Sa-ouk.

Sars link
There was an increase in kimchi consumption two years ago, when thousands of people in Asia contracted SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).


Kimchi was reported to have helped to prevent Sars. The claim was never scientifically proven, but according to some Koreans, people in other countries followed their example and started eating kimchi.

"After the Sars outbreak, I went to China and I noticed that the Korean restaurants there sold most of the kimchi they'd made that day," a Korean man said.

So one of Korea's national specialities may soon find a much bigger market. Whether it really is an effective remedy, only time and more research will tell.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4347443.stm

Yahoo! News Mon, Mar7:27pm 14, 2005

Bird Flu Clusters May Signal Virus Change - WHO

Mon Mar 14, 1:05 AM ET Top Stories - Reuters

HANOI (Reuters) - A cluster of human bird flu cases among relatives and possibly health workers in Vietnam may show the virus is changing into a form that can be passed on by humans, the World Health Organization said.

The WHO is worried that bird flu, which has killed 47 people in Asia, could mutate into an easily spread form that sparks the next influenza pandemic, killing millions.
"Such cases can provide the first signal that the virus is altering its behavior in human populations and thus alert authorities to the need to intervene quickly," the WHO said in a statement seen on Monday.

The main concern of the WHO was a series of cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in the northern Vietnam province of Thai Binh and the possible infection of two nurses who cared for one of the patients.

It also said it had received confirmation of an additional 10 cases of human infections from Vietnam's Health Ministry.

"Full information on new cases, including those that may be closely related in time and place, is critical to ongoing assessment of the pandemic risk posed by the H5N1 virus," the U.N health agency said in a statement.


The new cases were detected in early March or through re-examination of older cases, some of which dated back to late January and three of which had been fatal, the WHO said.

Since the H5N1 virus, which spread across much of Asia in late 2003, erupted again in Vietnam in December, 24 people have been confirmed to have contracted it and 13 have died.

Earlier, there had only been one probable case of human-to-human transmission of the virus, that of a Thai woman who cradled her infected and dying daughter in her arms for hours.

Now, medical experts are investigating whether two nurses who treated a bird flu victim in Thai Binh caught it from their patient.

In the Thai Binh cases, one male nurse tested positive for bird flu after tending a patient who had drunk raw duck blood.

At the weekend, Thai Binh health officials said a second nurse who had tended the patient was in hospital with symptoms of the disease and they were awaiting the results of tests being conducted in Hanoi.

The patient, whose 14-year-old sister and grandfather were also infected, remained in a critical condition, but his sister was recovering and his grandfather had shown no signs of illness despite testing positive.

The H5N1 virus has killed 34 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and a Cambodian and has recurred several times despite the slaughter of millions of poultry.

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http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-27-voa4.cfm

North Korea Makes Surprise Admission of Bird Flu Outbreak

27 March 2005
By Kurt Achin
Seoul



North Korea has announced it has culled hundreds of thousands of chickens to halt an outbreak of avian influenza. North Korea took the unusual step of admitting that at least three of the country's poultry farms had recently experienced outbreaks of avian influenza, also known as "bird flu."

An announcement by the official Korean Central News Agency said "a few farms" were infected, and that several hundred thousand chickens were slaughtered and burned to halt further infections.

The farms, near the capital, Pyongyang, included the Hadang farm, which North Korea has previously hailed as one of its showcase agricultural facilities.

The news release said that "dynamic work" was being undertaken to stop the outbreak from spreading to other parts of the country. It did not specify when the outbreak began or which strain of the flu virus was found, but did say no human beings had been infected.

North Korea specialist at Korea University in Seoul Professor Nam Sung-wook says North Korea's severe economic shortages may be behind Pyongyang's uncharacteristic frankness.

He says he believes the North will seek pharmaceutical aid from South Korea and the international community in the coming weeks. A World Health Organization team is already in North Korea on a fact-finding mission.

"They are short of medicine. That is why they announced the bird flu in public," said Mr. Nam.

The announcement confirms media reports in South Korea that first emerged last month. North Korea had previously maintained it was free of the disease.

Following those reports, South Korean officials announced they were halting what would have been the first imports of North Korean poultry in almost 50 years. Days later, Japan announced it would not allow North Korean poultry to enter the country.

An especially severe strain of bird flu known as H5N1 has killed at least 48 people in Southeast Asia since December 2003. In most if not all cases, the victims contracted the disease after handling infected poultry.

International health authorities say they fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible from human

Tests Confirm Deadly Bird Flu in Romania

AP - 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
BUCHAREST, Romania - Tests have confirmed a link between the bird flu found in Romania and the deadly virus that has devastated flocks in Asia and turned up in Turkey, the European Commission said Saturday. The announcement came after Romania's agriculture ministry said the flu detected in wild birds found dead in the Danube delta was the H5N1 strain. "Tests confirmed that the virus in Romania was an H5N1 strain, but further tests were required to confirm the link with the strain found in Asia and Turkey," the European Union's executive body said in a statement.

AP - Fri Oct 14,10:46 AM ET
Romanian gendarmes throw plastic bags with filled with dead domestic birds culled on suspicion of bird flu disease in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos, Romania, Friday, Oct 14, 2005. The European Union pledged financial aid to help Romania fight against the spread of bird flu, an EU official said Friday, after birds on the Danube delta tested positive this week for a virus subtype. (AP Photo/Bogdan Cristel, pool)

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