Tagged: Flu

In biology, you can't get much simpler than viruses.

They stick onto cells, pop open and then dump their genes inside to reproduce.

But the naming of viruses isn't so easy to follow.

Public health authorities in Taiwan have identified the first human case of a new type of bird flu seen outside China.

The development, while not unexpected, points to the potential spread of a new type of bird flu that has, according to the World Health Organization, sickened at least 108 people and been implicated in 22 deaths.

U.S. hospitals have been urged to be on the lookout for symptoms of bird flu among patients who have recently traveled to China, where a new strain of the virus has killed 17 people and infected more than 70.

An international dream team of flu experts assembled in China today.

Underscoring the urgency that public health agencies feel about the emergence of a new kind of bird flu, the team is headed by Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization's top influenza scientist.

Before he left Geneva, Fukuda explained the wide-open nature of the investigation in an interview with NPR.