Bird flu confirmed in second African country -- Niger has become the second African country with confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, a lab official said Monday. Ilaria Capua, chief of the laboratory in Padua, Italy, said the tests were confirmed Monday and the government of the impoverished West African country had been informed.

First Swiss bird flu case reported in Geneva -- Switzerland confirmed on Sunday its first case of avian flu in a duck found dead in the heart of Geneva, near the city’s famous jet d’eau fountain. Swiss officials said it was not yet clear if the wild bird, found on Wednesday, was infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus which can infect humans.

France fights panic in wake of bird flu outbreak -- French President Jacques Chirac urged consumers not to panic Saturday, hours after the government announced the European Union’s first outbreak of deadly bird flu in commercial poultry.

Bird flu hits Slovenia, where in EU next? -- Slovenia became the latest European Union country to detect H5N1 bird flu and others awaited results on Thursday as an EU medical expert said the virus was likely to spread further. The virus was first confirmed in the European Union on Saturday, when Greece and Italy said they had found it in wild swans. Austria and Germany followed on Tuesday.

Deadly bird flu virus spreads in Europe -- European governments are bolstering their guard against bird flu, faced with a growing number of dead swans and the risk that migratory birds — which begin returning north next month — could bring the disease from Africa. Concerns about the disease, and its possible threat to humans, have mounted.

Three more countries detect bird flu -- Three more countries said on Tuesday they had detected cases of deadly bird flu in wild swans, with Germany, Iran and Austria the latest to find the virus that has killed 91 people worldwide. Austria and Germany became the third and fourth European Union countries to report H5N1 bird flu, just three days after the bloc’s first instances were confirmed by Italy and Greece.

Iraq says dead teenager had bird flu -- A 14-year-old girl who died in northern Iraq this month had bird flu, Iraq's health minister said on Monday, despite the World Health Organization having initially discounted the virus as the cause of death.

A WHO official said preliminary results from a U.S. military laboratory in Cairo showed the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, but it was urgently seeking further tests at a British laboratory.If confirmed it would be the first known human case of the avian virus in Iraq, whose northern provinces border Turkey, where more than 20 people have already been diagnosed with H5N1. read more