Pigs may seem cute, but from a virological perspective, they’re oinking time bombs. That’s because swine can become infected with both avian and human flu viruses, making them influenza mixing bowls.
Flu
Sniffles and Sneezes: Canadian Herbal Remedy Wants to Be Approved for Kids
Colds are the bane of a parent’s existence in wintertime, which is pretty much the equivalent of perpetual runny-nose season. The drug manufacturer that can successfully develop a remedy for the sneezing, drippy noses, …
One Stop Flu Shot: Hope for a Universal Influenza Vaccine
Perhaps there’s a silver lining to last year’s H1N1 pandemic flu outbreak: those who were infected and survived appear to have developed ‘super flu’ antibodies that may help researchers develop an influenza inoculation that could …
Bird Flu Pops Up Again in Hong Kong. Is a Pandemic on Its Way?
Hong Kong residents experienced an unwelcome blast from the past on Nov. 18. A 59-year-old woman in the city contracted H5N1 avian influenza — the first confirmed case in Hong Kong since 2003.
More Wisdom From a Long-Ago Plague
In its own deadly way, the 1918 flu pandemic is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s hard to say anything good about a global scourge that claimed 50 million lives, but a new article published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases …
Who’s Afraid of the Flu? Not Moms
In a typical flu season, up to 150 U.S. children die; last year’s numbers were even worse: the swine flu pandemic killed 1,100 kids. Still, one-third of U.S. moms don’t plan to get their children a flu shot this season, …
Is Your Touch-Screen Dirtier than a Toilet Flusher?
Insert “going viral” joke here: a study conducted by Stanford researchers found that letting your friends handle your cool new touch-screen device could mean sharing more than the latest technology. You could also be passing …
Whooping Cough Cases May Break Record in California
With nine deaths and 4,017 illnesses reported, California is on track to break a 55-year record in pertussis, or whooping cough, infections — a highly contagious upper respiratory illness that affects children in …
Post-H1N1, Why You Still Need to Worry About Flu
The H1N1 pandemic has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the flu strain that started it all.
As Flu Season Approaches, Some Health-Care Workers Say ‘No’ to the Flu Shot
As summer comes to a close and the influenza virus starts calling open season on our immune systems, one would hope that health-care workers have gotten their CDC-prescribed yearly flu shot by now — especially given their high rates of job-related exposure to infectious disease and their easy access to the vaccine. Guess again.
Death Stats For Flu Can Be Misleading, CDC Report Shows
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are revising their estimates of the number of people who die each year from flu. We need good death estimates before we can judge how well our infection-control policies are really working, researchers say — but, according to a new report released this week, earlier flu stats have …
The swine flu pandemic is over
So sayeth the World Health Organization (WHO)—and they should know, since they were the ones who declared a full, phase six-level pandemic a little more than a year ago. Now it’s done—this morning WHO head Dr. Margaret Chan announced that the group’s emergency committee of top flu experts had convinced her that the pandemic had …
Getting your flu shot — with a patch?
Expanding on previous research into the possible use of tiny “micro-needles” to deliver vaccines using a patch, researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed dissolving “micro-needles” made from freeze-dried vaccine that could not only minimize pain associated with vaccinations, but improve immune
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