Scientists claim they have found a new strain of avian flu, the H9N2 virus, which could mutate to become more easily transmissible among humans and trigger a possible bird flu pandemic.

According to a study published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, the avian influenza strain found in Nigeria is genetically different from previous African outbreaks

Scientists from Nottingham Trent University in Britain are developing a device that can detect an outbreak of bird flu in two hours.

The technology works by identifying molecules from a swab of human saliva or animal tissue, before identifying with what kind of bird flu strain it is infected, researchers said

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

Preliminary studies of the latest outbreak that killed at least 38 Warao Indians in northeastern Venezuela indicate that it may be a type of infectious rabies transmitted by bites from bats, according to indigenous leaders and researchers from the University of California at Berkeley.

Though laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms include fever, body pains, tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis point to rabies, said the husband-and-wife team of anthropologist Charles Briggs and public health specialist Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs. The victims also had an extreme fear of water coupled with convulsions before death

At least 21 people, mostly children have died and more than 60 others are hospitalized after a suspected cholera outbreak in the southern Philippines, officials with the Red Cross said.

The outbreak began more than a week ago among Manobo tribesmen in an isolated area on the island of Mindanao and has spread to several remote mountainous hamlets near Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province, about 600 miles south of Manila