According to Dr. Ron Fouchier, a Dutch virologist, this mutation allows the virus to reproduce at much lower temperatures than a standard avian influenza virus.

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Mayo Clinic vaccine researcher Gregory Poland counts more than a dozen new diseases that have emerged in the last few decades: HIV, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, avian influenza.

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The new virus has genes from North American swine influenza, avian influenza, human influenza and a form of swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's Influenza Division.

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Two tests on the woman were positive for H5N1 avian influenza, but the government did not say how she might have contracted the virus.

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Flavonoids and flu: Two plant-based flavonoids disease-fighting compounds found in many foods significantly impaired the infectious activity of H5N1 avian-flu virus in laboratory experiments and may form the basis of future influenza treatments, a report in Antiviral Research says.

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