The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Bangkok, Thailand - Indonesia has become the seventh country in Asia to confirm an outbreak of deadly bird flu, as the World Health Organization warned Sunday that the virus could be resistant to basic human influenza drugs. The disease already has affected millions of chickens in Indonesia, said Sofjan Sudardjat, a senior agriculture official. But the virus has not yet crossed over to humans, he said. Indonesian officials had earlier denied the disease's presence, but the Indonesian Veterinarians Association said several independent investigations revealed that bird flu had already killed millions of chickens over the past several months. Kabul - The Canadian Forces in Afghanistan are scrambling to find alternative sources of meat for nearly 2,000 soldiers after being told to quarantine tonnes of U.S. beef that may eventually have to be destroyed because of fears over mad cow disease. Great Falls, Montona - A rapid response test for mad cow disease is likely years away even though scientists are scrambling to develop one, says a geneticist who has studied the disease for two decades. "People certainly are trying to develop something analogous to a dip stick test where you can get the results within hours or minutes," said Dr. George Carlson, director of the McLaughlin Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Great Falls, Mont.
