"When a family member gets sick, we sell a chicken to buy some medicine," said villager Adam Bouku, who has 16 chickens and 16 family members all living under the same roof.   Niger's economy is 98 percent agricultural, so birds are incredibly important.  For rural families, chickens are the closest thing to a savings account. "  Pray for the people of Africa as the government has been forced to euthanize these birds.  People, already starving, are being told not to consume their poultry livestock or their eggs.  Read why...

ABC News has an informative series of articles online.

What do you know about bird flu?  Take an online quiz!

You can find the most up-to-date daily reports HERE. 

Nature  has also devoted a site focused on the Bird Flu.

If you're fascinated with Google Earth like our family,  you'll appreciate the new feature allowing you to track the most current Avian Flu outbreaks by satellite.

This epidemic is adding a whole new layer of hunger on impoverished countries.  Pray with your families for these new victims of starvation.   Begin training your children about disease transmission and prevention.  Frequent and correct hand-washing cannot be over emphasized.  Coughing and sneezing into the "crook" of the elbow is now recommended by the CDC.  If you observe your kids coughing or sneezing into their hands,  teach them to follow up consistently with handwashing.  But most important, teach your children not to live in fear, to pray and rely on God's faithfulness.

"God, I praise your promise; in You I trust, I do not fear."

Psalm 56:5

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Posted by writmm

Great post with great links! Thanks for stopping by and reading my avian flu post! It is definitely something we need to be thinking about and learning about now! I am enjoying reading your blog and I am going to add you to my list of friends and subscribe to your RSS feed. It is full of interesting tidbits!

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Posted by writmm

I spoke too soon, you are not set up for RSS feeds. If you go to the HSB control panel, click on site feed and enable RSS. That way people who have RSS feed readers (Really Simple Syndication) will be to get your latest articles sent to their computer and then can come read the ones they are most interested in and comment. It's a great invention and really cuts down on surfing time:)

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Posted by dinomomm

We have free-range chickens, so I try to keep up with advances in the avian flu, and your post just made it that much easier, not to mention more educational for my kids. How awful this is for the poor people in Africa! Our family will have to make a concerted effort to remember them in prayer. Thanks for the reminder and the new info. I'm adding you to my list of friends so that I can find you again. LOL.

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