Latest Influenza pandemic Stories

Flu rates among two- to four-year-olds decline 34 percent following changes in U.S. vaccine policy; study is first to use real time hospital data to evaluate policy change BOSTON, Sept. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Recent policies calling for vaccinating preschool-aged children against the flu led to a 34 percent decline in influenza cases in this age group, according to researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and McGill University. The findings, which revealed smaller declines in...

First Influenza Cases of the 2011/2012 Flu Season roll in this week at MD Now Urgent Care Walk-in Medical Centers of Boca Raton and Lake Worth. As one of the largest providers of walk-in medical services in Florida, MD Now Urgent Care Center’s medical staff had barely been administering the new all-in-one seasonal influenza vaccine to patients, employees and local businesses for less than a month when they suddenly began seeing its first cases of the flu. In the past, flu season was...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Olympic Gold Medalist Kristi Yamaguchi and her mother, Carole Yamaguchi, are leading mothers across the U.S. in a national public awareness campaign solely aimed at increasing alarmingly low influenza immunization rates among families. To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/51916-yamaguchi-moms-initiative-to-boost-family-influenza-vaccination-rates Now that the Centers for Disease...

Higher flu vaccination rates for health care personnel can dramatically reduce the threat of flu outbreak among nursing home residents, according to a study published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. The study, which focused on nursing homes in New Mexico, found that when a facility had between 51 and 75 percent of its health care personnel with direct patient care vaccinated, the chances...

ROME, Sept. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a new book released today, government, military, civil society, and private sector leaders are challenged to help unify experiences and resources in order to successfully manage and mitigate the impact of future global disasters by learning from recent pandemic response efforts. "Beyond Pandemics: A Whole-of-Society Approach to Disaster Preparedness" outlines the human, economic and societal benefit of increasing collaboration, planning and dialogue...

Mankind Is Extremely Vulnerable According To The Global Virus Network NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The movie, "Contagion," depicts the story of a lethal, airborne virus that rapidly becomes a global pandemic, wreaking havoc on mankind, while the medical community desperately seeks to contain the threat and find a cure. Is the movie's scenario fiction or a factual portent of what could happen today? According to internationally renowned virus hunter, Dr. Robert C....

TREVOSE, Pa., Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- WHO: Experts from International SOS, the world's leading provider of integrated medical, international healthcare and security assistance services, will discuss the recent discovery of a new strain of bird flu and review the preventative measures that should be taken in light of the news. -- John Oxford, Ph.D. Scientific Director of Retroscreen...

ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Can the U.S. public health preparedness system withstand another terrorist attack or potentially devastating event? The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) believes it can. In fact, ASTHO believes that experiences of the past decade have spurred a transformation of America's public health preparedness system. Since 2001, states and territories have significantly improved and demonstrated their ability to...

ADDISON, Texas, Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The flu season is just around the corner, and like the illness itself, it can be very unpredictable. To help keep the flu from infecting you, Concentra, a subsidiary of Humana Inc., is sharing some simple preventive measures every person can take to protect themselves before the flu season is in full swing. Seasonal influenza, or the flu, is an extremely contagious respiratory infection and often includes symptoms like high fever, cough, and...

  Two U.S. children who had fallen ill with a previously unidentified influenza virus contracted a new strain that formed when one type of swine flu somehow picked up genetic material from the strain that was responsible for 2009's swine flu pandemic, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday. According to AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, the children - one of whom was from Pennsylvania and the other from Indiana - were infected in July...