Half-a-million infected people threaten to spread the potent strand of tuberculosis further
pandemic
SARS 10 Years Later: Are We Better Prepared for Outbreaks?
SARS raised the worldwide alarm for how vulnerable we are to disease epidemics. Did we learn our lesson?
How a New Swine Flu Virus Could Complicate Influenza Season
Since August, the CDC has logged 12 cases of human infection with H3N2, a new flu virus from pigs. Should we be worried?
Should Journals Describe How Scientists Made a Killer Flu?
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. government asked scientific journals not to publish the details of experiments on the deadly H5N1, for fear that the information could be used with malice. Is such censorship smart?
Study Shows the Killer 1918 Flu Began Even Earlier Than Thought
Contagion was high on the box office list again last weekend, proof that millions of Americans are entertained by scenes of infection, suffering, sniffles and autopsies of Gwyneth Paltrow’s brain. The movie can sometimes veer a …
How Flu Spreads on a Plane
As if the generally horrific experience of flying wasn’t bad enough (maybe I’m just a little sour about the 90 minutes I spent on the tarmac at Newark last night), a new study [PDF] in Emerging Infectious Diseases shows that …
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.
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 …
Are we failing to stop the next flu pandemic?
The H1N1 flu pandemic last year came out of nowhere. Well, not exactly — H1N1 first emerged in human beings in Mexico. But that wasn’t where most influenza experts were looking. The focus had been on southeast Asia, where the H5N1 avian flu had been infecting — and killing — human beings for the past few years. Most flu pandemics …
WHO: Pharma ties didn’t impact swine flu decisions
In response to an investigation published last week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) which pointed to affiliations between World Health Organization (WHO) advisers and pharmaceutical companies manufacturing H1N1 flu vaccines, WHO inspector general Margaret Chan said that industry ties had no impact on the global health agency’s
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BMJ: WHO swine flu advisers had drug company ties
Almost exactly one year ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the swine flu outbreak had reached global pandemic proportions. The announcement, made on June 11, 2009, spurred governments to order huge stocks of vaccines and prompted broad public health initiatives around the globe. And while we can all be grateful that
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Avoiding Bogus Flu Remedies
The World Health Organization says it’s maintaining its estimate that swine flu — the virus better known now as “novel H1N1” — will infect some 2 billion people before the pandemic is over. That’s almost a third of the world’s population, and a scary thought. So this seems as good a time as any to figure out what’s fact and what’s …