The Egyptian government reported the country's 21st death from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu on Saturday. The man died in the northern Delta region, the North African nation's health ministry said.

Mohamed Idris, from Baheira, had been at a hospital in Egypt's second largest city Alexandria with reported respiratory problems and a high fever. He did not respond to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, Deputy Minister Nasr Al Sayed told the official government news agency MENA

The World Bank Group has approved a US$6 million grant to help Cambodia carry out its national plan to counter threats from avian and human influenza, and to strengthen its health system to respond to any possible outbreak in the future.

The grant, provided by the International Development Association (IDA), will be used to finance the Avian and Human Influenza Control and Preparedness Emergency Project (AHICPEP), a World Bank (WB) press statement said

Researchers have concluded that men and women typically have different tastes in food with men favoring meat and poultry while women tend to prefer fruits and vegetables.

The study is based on the behavior of 14,000 adult men and women surveyed from May 2006 to April 2007 for the Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet). The aim of the study was to determine their eating habits, including high risk foods such as undercooked meat and eggs

Despite major efforts to control the avian influenza in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the virus, the situation there remains "grave," the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Tuesday. The bird flu has become "deeply entrenched" in Indonesia, effecting 31 out of 33 provinces according to United Nations estimates.

The virus is endemic in Java, Sumatra, Bali and southern Sulawesi with sporadic outbreaks reported from other areas. In February, five people living in the west of Java, Indonesia's most populous island, died after contracting the H5N1 virus, responsible for outbreaks of bird flu around the world in recent years

Health workers have begun culling of poultry in an attempt to combat a fresh bird flu outbreak in the country's eastern state West Bengal, officials said on Monday. State workers planned to destroy nearly 50,000 domestic birds in two districts where officials found infected poultry.

Culling began in a radius of five kilometers (3.1 miles) around the new area of infection. While 22,400 birds are to be culled in Raghunathganj-II, the culling target in respect of Jiaganj is 27,200 birds