Influenza News and Research

Latest Influenza News and Research

Sanofi Pasteur inaugurates high-tech vaccine production facility in France

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group, announced today the inauguration of a high-tech vaccine production facility in France to respond to soaring demand worldwide.

25 Jun 2008

NIAID creates HIV vaccine discovery branch

To accelerate the translation of basic discoveries about HIV into advances in vaccine design and evaluation, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has formed a new Vaccine Discovery Branch within the Vaccine Research Program in the Division of AIDS (DAIDS).

25 Jun 2008

Pitt awarded $2.5 million to model how the brain and immune system function in response to illness, infection

In an effort to promote the application of mathematics to medical treatment, researchers in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Mathematics will undertake a $2.5 million project to create models of how the brain and immune system function and change over time in response to certain illnesses, infections, and treatment.

24 Jun 2008

Discovery of possible new way to block inflammation in autoimmune disease

Researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have identified a promising new target for autoimmune disease treatment - a cell-surface receptor called DR3.

23 Jun 2008

Life expectancy in U.S. reached record high of 78.1 years in 2006

Life expectancy for U.S. residents reached a record high of 78.1 years in 2006, compared with a previous record high of 77.8 years in 2005, according to a preliminary report released on Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics at CDC, the Washington Post reports. For the report, Melonie Heron, a NCHS demographer, and colleagues analyzed 95% of the death certificates collected in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in 2006.

17 Jun 2008

Age-adjusted death rates in U.S. down sharply in 2006

Age-adjusted death rates in the United States dropped significantly between 2005 and 2006 and life expectancy hit another record high, according to preliminary death statistics released today by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

11 Jun 2008

European businesses not properly advised on how to prepare for flu pandemic

A new report entitled Business Continuity Planning and Pandemic Influenza in Europe, published by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), has found huge gaps and differences across Europe in the level of advice given to businesses to prepare for a possible influenza pandemic.

11 Jun 2008

Oxygen-rich lifesaving efforts pose risk for respiratory infections

Each year, thousands of premature infants battle to breathe. Thanks to life-saving interventions developed in the past couple decades - steroids given to their mothers to stall pre-term labor, mechanical ventilation, air enriched with extra oxygen, and surfactant, a crucial wetting agent that makes breathing less work - most of these newborns survive with enough lung function to grow and go home.

11 Jun 2008

Quick responses to influenza outbreaks reduces illness and death

Influenza outbreaks were shorter and resulted in fewer cases and fewer deaths at long-term care facilities that started residents on preventive antiviral medications within five days of the first case, compared to those that started later, according to a new study in the July 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, currently available online.

11 Jun 2008

Horse industry let off the hook over horse flu debt

The horse industry in Australia has been let off the hook over last year's equine influenza (EI) outbreak.

11 Jun 2008

When it comes to catching an infection, planes no riskier than airports

A study carried out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has found there is no greater risk of catching an infection on a plane than in any other crowded and confined space.

10 Jun 2008

Indonesia criticised over change in bird flu reporting policy

A decision by authorities in Indonesia to restrict the reporting of bird flu cases in humans to every six months, has been condemned as irresponsible.

9 Jun 2008

Bird flu hits the UK and the U.S.

Tests currently being conducted will determine just how virulent the H7 strain is and in the meantime a temporary inner control zone of 3km has been set up around the farm along with a 10km outer zone.

5 Jun 2008

Avoiding spleen removal for Cooley's anemia sufferers

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College may have discovered the precise role of a gene in one of the world's most common blood disorders, beta-thalassemia, commonly known as Cooley's anemia. Along with sickle-cell anemia, Cooley's anemia is the most commonly inherited disease in the world, affecting many people of Mediterranean descent, and 20 out of every 100,000 African-Americans. The World Health Organization estimates that between 50,000-100,000 children are born with the disease each year.

27 May 2008

Warning about the danger of yet another bird flu virus

Scientists in the United States have identified a second H strain of bird flu that could cause a pandemic, they say the H5N1 strain of bird flu currently circulating the globe is not the only cause for concern.

27 May 2008

New treatments for viral and other diseases by blocking genes

The elusive goal of developing effective treatments for viral diseases such as AIDS and influenza has been brought closer by dramatic progress in the ability to interfere with viral genetic machinery. The stage was set for a coordinated European effort to accelerate research and stimulate development of new treatments against viral diseases at a recent research conference organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF).

26 May 2008

Concern over mystery of Bangladeshi baby with bird flu

A case of bird flu in a young child in Bangladesh has raised concern. According to the Bangladeshi health authorities a 16-month-old boy has been confirmed as the country's first human case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

25 May 2008

Scientists paint-viruses with proteins to track and treat viral disease and evolution

Biologists from Austria and Singapore developed a technique that adds a new twist on the relationship between biology and art. In an article recently published online in The FASEB Journal and scheduled for the August 2008 print issue, these researchers describe how they were able to coat-or paint-viruses with proteins.

20 May 2008

NIAID to advance B-cell approach to HIV vaccines

To advance underdeveloped approaches to designing a preventive HIV vaccine, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is launching a new program to foster the study of B cells, immune cells that can produce antibodies with the capacity to neutralize HIV.

20 May 2008