Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Cases of Bird Flu in Southeast Asia this year: Zero

It may be too early to arrive at a conclusion, but the region where the deadly avian bird flu first erupted in 2003 has had no new human cases reported this year, leading health officials speculate that the virus may indeed have an end point.

The New York Times reports that the virus H5N1 hasn’t been reported in any part of Southeast Asia in humans during the past 12 months, and no cases in poultry for the past six months, where it was first reported and claimed most of its victims, both avian and human.

The newspaper quotes Dr. David Nabarro, the United Nations’ chief pandemic flu coordinator as saying, “In Thailand and Vietnam, we’ve had the most fabulous success stories.” But Nabarro stopped short of saying the virus was dying out, the newspaper reported, adding he said he was “cautious in interpreting these shifts in patterns” because too little is known about how the disease spreads.

This news is particularly significant for these two countries, because Vietnam had almost half the human cases of avian flu worldwide, and there hasn’t been a single reported case in either humans or poultry this year, the newspaper reported. Thailand, also particularly hard-hit, hasn’t had a human case reported in nearly a year or an avian case in six months, the Times said.

A second significant development, the Times reports, is that birds migrating during the spring from Africa to Europe have not so far carried the H5N1 virus into Europe.

Since bird flu appeared in 2003, more than 100 people have died worldwide, and health experts say that all of them died after having been in contact with birds. This has led to the belief that the virus has not yet mutated to cause human-to-human infection.

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Tibetan seo tips Yoga to be Focus of Breast Cancer Study

Can a routine of yoga help ease the side effects of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients? Possibly.

The U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) has decided to spend $2.4 million to find out. The NCI has given the money to the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to expand research it began in 2004 to determine if practicing a particular discipline called Tibetan yoga will help breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

According to a news release from the Anderson Center, its 2004 research, published in the journal Cancer found that practicing Tibetan yoga improved the sleep of lymphoma patients, and a smaller study revealed that breast cancer patients had a better attitude toward their disease if they practiced Tibetan yoga.

What is Tibetan yoga? “Like other types of yoga, Tibetan yoga involves breathing, physical movements and meditation, but it puts greater emphasis on meditation and visualization,” the press release quotes Alejandro Chaoul, an expert in the discipline who will help conduct the study, as saying.

Lorenzo Cohen, the director of the Integrative Medicine Program at M. D. Anderson is the study’s principal investigator. According to the news release, the study will involve comparing a Tibetan yoga routine with simple stretching or usual care in women who will be undergoing chemotherapy to treat their breast cancer.

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Disgraced companies Korean Stem Cell Scientist Indicted for Fraud

Discredited South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk was indicted Friday on charges of fraud, embezzlement and bioethics violations in connection with faked research.

Prosecutors also indicted five members of Hwang’s research team on lesser charges, the Associated Press reported.

If convicted, Hwan