Latest Influenza pandemic Stories

The scientists behind a pair of controversial research projects designed to make a deadly strain of bird flu more contagious have agreed to halt their work for 60 days in order to allow experts to determine whether or not the research could lead to a global pandemic or a possible bioterrorism threat. A letter announcing the decision, authored by the three scientists behind the two studies -- Ron Fouchier, Adolfo García-Sastre, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka -- and three dozen other top influenza...

Worldwide pandemics of influenza caused widespread death and illness in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009. A new study examining weather patterns around the time of these pandemics finds that each of them was preceded by La Niña conditions in the equatorial Pacific. The study's authors--Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health—note that the La Niña pattern is known to alter the migratory patterns of birds,...

Monitoring Internet search traffic about influenza may prove to be a better way for hospital emergency rooms to prepare for a surge in sick patients compared to waiting for outdated government flu case reports. A report on the value of the Internet search tool for emergency departments, studied by a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine over a 21-month period, is published in the January 9 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The researchers reported a strong correlation between...

Don't let the new year trick you into thinking that flu season is over. According to an expert at Baylor College of Medicine, flu season is just starting and those who have not yet been vaccinated should still do so. "There is still time to get vaccinated before flu season peaks in February," said Dr. Paul Glezen, professor of molecular virology and microbiology at BCM. Nasal spray Glezen recommends that healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 49 get the influenza vaccine in...

CLEVELAND, Dec. 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the support of leading health experts, recommends influenza vaccination for everyone 6 months of age and older. Although many Americans associate the flu with the fall, influenza activity often doesn't peak until winter or early spring so vaccination is still recommended and beneficial into the winter months. Locally, between 21,950 and 87,800 Cleveland-area residents will suffer...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that it has received twelve reports of humans infected with the A(H3N2) - or swine flu virus - from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maine, Iowa, and Indiana. Eleven of the victims were children, and half of all the cases could not be connected to exposure to swine, the CDC adds. All patients have made a full recovery after three had been admitted to hospital, Medical News Today reports. The investigation into the West Virginia...

The flu shot, typically the first line of defense against seasonal influenza, could better treat the U.S. population, thanks to University of Pittsburgh researchers. New research that focuses on the composition and timing of the shot design was published in the September-October issue of Operations Research by Pitt Swanson School of Engineering faculty members Oleg Prokopyev, an assistant professor, and Professor Andrew Schaefer, both in the Department of Industrial Engineering, and...

Cuts to Key Programs Could Hurt Ability to Detect and Respond to Crises WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released the ninth annual Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism today, which finds key programs that detect and respond to bioterrorism, new disease outbreaks and natural or accidental disasters are at risk due to federal and state budget...

The two main ways to prevent and control influenza today are annual immunization and antiviral drugs. A team of investigators has found that statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs, may offer an additional treatment to complement these approaches and reduce mortality among patients hospitalized with influenza. The findings are published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases and are now available online. In an observational study led by Meredith L. Vandermeer, MPH, then with the Oregon Public...

The researchers studied the immune response of 107 pregnant women after they were injected with a single dose of non-adjuvant H1N1 vaccine. They concluded that the influenza shot boosted the immune response in pregnant women and at the same time protected neuronatal babies via the antibodies that transferred through the placenta. These results were published in the review Annals of Internal Medicine dated December 6th,.2011. They are available on-line at:...