The bird flu detected in Nigeria last month is a new strain of the deadly H5N1 virus that has not been recorded in Africa previously.

Laboratory tests from Nigeria and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Italy found the virus from "backyard poultry" in Katsina and Kano states to be an H5N1, clade 2, EMA3

A new, faster-to-make whole-virus bird flu vaccine may protect against multiple bird flu strains, early studies in humans suggest. The new H5N1 vaccine appears to be safe, more effective than the one currently approved for human use and also able to be manufactured much more quickly than conventional vaccines, researcher said.

Current flu vaccines are grown in fertilized hens' eggs and the long process takes 22 weeks. Due to this drawback, the vaccine can only be manufacture seasonally, when the eggs are available

Bangladesh health authorities confirmed on Thursday that a 16-month-old boy who became infected with bird flu had recovered after treatment. The south-Asian country has become the 15th country to have a human case of H5N1 avian influenza, according to news services.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta confirmed on Wednesday that child is from Dhaka, the capital; an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoted Saluddin Khan, a government official, as saying

Britain's leading drug manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has won European Union approval for the first human bird flu vaccine that will protect people against the H5N1 strain of the deadly disease.

Glaxo, which has already spent $2 billion developing the vaccine, has orders from Switzerland and the United States for the vaccine

South Korea on Monday slaughtered and buried around 15,000 poultry in Seoul to prevent further spreading of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the capital. Quarantine officials reported culling chickens, ducks, pheasants and turkeys raised in farms, restaurants, schools and homes in the capital.

Monday's culling resulted from a second case of bird flu confirmed in Seoul on Sunday, less than a week after the first one was detected. On Sunday, two outbreaks of the H5N1 virus were reported in poultry farms in Busan, country's second largest city, and Ansung