Chickens sit inside their sales cage as people walk pass in the steet of Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday Feb. 9, 2006. Africa's first outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus was reported Wednesday in a large commercial farm in Nigeria that raised chickens, geese and ostriches, and 46,000 birds were slaughtered. A bird flu strain was found in two more Nigerian states on Thursday.
Feb. 6, 2006
Iraqi health workers collect ducks from local village farms, Monday, Feb. 6, 2006, on the outskirts of Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. American and U.N. health experts arrived in Iraq to help this war-ravaged country fight bird flu. Officials said Sunday that at least eight people are in hospital suffering symptoms akin to the deadly H5N1 strain.
Jan. 26, 2006
Vietnamese vendors prepare meat for sale to New Years shoppers at a downtown Hanoi market Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006. In many Asian countries, chicken or duck is central to Lunar New Year feasts, and while some people are shying away from poultry during the Year of the Dog, others say they're not about to let bird flu dampen tradition.
Jan. 22, 2006
A U.S. delegation of bird flu experts walk to a bird flu crisis center in the eastern Turkish town of Van, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006. A total of 21 people, four of whom died, have tested positive for H5N1 in Turkey and the U.S. team toured affected areas in eastern Turkey to assess what help the United States can provide.
Jan. 11, 2006
A villager chases her ducks as Agriculture Ministry employees collect them for culling in the village of Buyukyilanli in eastern Turkey, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006. Turkey raced to contain an outbreak of bird flu and reassure the world it had the potentially fatal illness under control, after preliminary tests showed at least 15 people, two of them children who have died, were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain.
Jan. 5, 2006
The coffin of 15-year-old Fatma Kocyigit is carried for burial in her hometown, Dogubayazit, Turkey, Jan. 5. 2006. Her brother, Mehmet Ali, 14, also died of bird flu as health authorities tried to determine if the siblings had contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus. If confirmed, they would be the first human cases of the H5N1 strain in Turkey, as the virus moves westward from the far eastern corner of Asia.
In a development health experts are calling alarming, two bird flu patients in Vietnam died after developing resistance to Tamiflu, the key drug that governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak. The experts said the deaths were disturbing because the two girls had received early and aggressive treatment with Tamiflu and ad gotten the recommended doses.
Dec. 12, 2005
A swan, left, and a duck, right, fight for food at a zoo Monday Dec. 12, 2005 in Shanghai, China. Southeast Asian nations agreed to create a stockpile of antiviral drugs to combat the deadly spread of bird flu throughout the region during the Association of South East Asian Nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
Dec. 5, 2005
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko visits the village of Nekrasovka in Crimea, 500 miles south of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, Monday, Dec. 5, 2005. Nekrasivka is one of the worst-infected villages, where all fowl were ordered destroyed. Yushchenko, angry over delays in reporting a virulent strain of bird flu, ordered the dismissal of Ukraine's top veterinarian officer.
Nov. 27, 2005
Doctors push a wheelchair with a patient pretending to be infected with bird flu during a mock exercise in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005. About 900 people participated in the drill, which was played out to help Vietnam assess its pandemic preparedness. The country has been hardest hit by bird flu, logging more than 40 human deaths since 2003.
Nov. 27, 2005
An elderly Romanian woman cries as health officials approach her home to cull domestic birds in Scarlatesti, Romania, northeast of Bucharest, Sunday Nov. 27, 2005. Authorities began culling thousands of domestic birds in this eastern Romanian village where a turkey has tested positive for the H5 subtype of bird flu.
Nov. 21, 2005
Birds from a goose and duck farm in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, wait in a pen on Monday Nov. 21, 2005. Birds from the farm are being culled and all poultry are being tested within a five kilometer radius. The United States banned poultry from mainland British Columbia because of a case of bird flu, though Canadian officials said it wasn't the virulent form blamed for more than 60 human deaths in Southeast Asia.
Nov. 17, 2005
An agricultural official catches a chicken to bring it to a lab for tests after a number of poultry deaths in Lamdom village, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005. Two additional deaths from bird flu brought Indonesia's toll from the disease to seven, as officials acknowledged it couldn't fight a widening outbreak alone.
Nov. 16, 2005
Workers wait at a disinfection checkpoint at the entrance to Qitaizi Village in Heishan, in China's northeast Liaoning province Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005. The village is the site of one of four recent outbreaks of bird flu in Liaoning province. China announced it would vaccinate its entire poultry stock of 14 billion birds in an effort to prevent further outbreaks.
Nov. 14, 2005
An Indonesian youth holds racing pigeons in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 14, 2005. Indonesia's president said the country could not afford the mass slaughter of poultry in bird flu-infected areas, but hoped the World Bank would be able to fund a culling program. The country reports seven people have died from bird flu, two more than confirmed by the World Health Organization.
Nov. 12, 2005
A seller feeds a fighting cock at an animal market in Bangkok on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2005. Twenty-one people in Thailand have caught bird flu since it swept into Asia in late 2003, and 13 of them have died. There have been four confirmed cases this year, one of them fatal.
Nov. 9, 2005
A chicken peers out of a pen at a chicken farm Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005, in Pondek Aren, about 36 miles south of Jakarta. Most of the birds in the area have not been destroyed, despite a young woman's death from bird flu in the village. U.N. guidelines warn that containment measures must be taken to keep the virus from spreading.
Nov. 8, 2005
A general view of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive board room, on the second day of a three-day global bird flu conference, at the WHO headquarters, in Geneva, Nov. 8, 2005. Experts in human and veterinary health were meeting to plan action for containing the spread of bird flu as the perilous poultry disease claimed a further life in Vietnam and inflicted a suspected sixth fatality in Indonesia.
Nov. 1, 2005
President George W. Bush walks toward the podium prior to speaking about the administration's national strategy for pandemic influenza preparedness and response at William Natcher Center of the National Institutes of Health Nov. 1, 2005 in Bethesda, Md. Mr. Bush called for an early warning system in case of an outbreak of a flu pandemic.