As a human avian influenza pandemic remains a very real global threat, the University of Maryland-based Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza Coordinated Agricultural Project, AICAP, has been re-funded with a second five million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
An outbreak of pandemic influenza in the U.S. could be mitigated with prompt implementation of social-distancing measures combined with antiviral treatment and prophylaxis until a vaccine is available.
If the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza ever comes to Kansas, diagnosticians at Kansas State University's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory will be the first to know.
Physical barriers, such as regular handwashing and wearing masks, gloves and gowns may be more effective than drugs to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses like influenza and SARS, concludes a study published on bmj.com today.
Q&A about flu season with Dr. Eric Westerman, an infectious disease expert with The Methodist Hospital in Houston.
If SARS makes a comeback or a serious flu epidemic becomes a reality, structured hygiene routines aimed at younger children could become an important focus in fighting back against these deadly viruses, according to a new review of recent studies.
Since it first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, the H5N1 avian flu virus has been slowly evolving into a pathogen better equipped to infect humans. The final form of the virus, biomedical researchers fear, will be a highly pathogenic strain of influenza that spreads easily among humans.
Media Advisory on a series of SARS research reports, bringing to media attention to the latest discoveries.
According to results from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, 65 percent of parents plan to have their children, ages 6 months to 5 years, vaccinated against the flu this season. The poll also finds that parents are more likely to vaccinate their kids if they plan to vaccinate themselves.
A new biosensor developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) can detect avian influenza in just minutes. In addition to being a rapid test, the biosensor is economical, field-deployable, sensitive to different viral strains and requires no labels or reagents.
Vaccinating children against the influenza virus will help prevent many outpatient visits and hospitalizations due to the flu, according to a recent study published in the September issue of Pediatrics by a pediatrician at Brenner Children's Hospital, part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found key features that distinguish influenza viruses found in birds from those that infect humans.
In a study published in the Aug. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association, a team of University of Michigan medical historians and epidemiologists from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that social restrictions allowed 43 U.S. cities to save thousands of lives during the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.
Scientists studying the potential spread of a flu pandemic must be careful to distinguish the different rates of infection among different groups, including the sociable and the shy, those most susceptible to infection and those less so, according to a new study in the "O.R. Forum" section of Operations Research, a flagship journal of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Less than half of doctors with an interest in infectious diseases in children believe that a flu pandemic resulting from an avian strain is very likely, according to a study published online ahead of print in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Veterinarians who work with birds are at increased risk for infection with avian influenza virus and should be among those with priority access to pandemic influenza vaccines and antivirals, according to a study conducted by researchers in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
Public health officials say a major concern is an outright flu pandemic, such as a human strain of avian flu. It's not a question of if such a health crisis will come but when. Are we prepared? In a word, say three UCLA researchers, no.
The antiviral drug peramivir might offer humans significant protection during a pandemic of the avian influenza virus H5N1, according to results of mouse studies conducted by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Scientists have designed a new, interactive map of the spread of the avian flu virus (H5N1) that for the first time incorporates genetic, geographic and evolutionary information that may help predict where the next outbreak of the virus is likely to occur.
A team of researchers report the first ever large-scale sequencing of western genomes of the deadly avian influenza virus, H5N1, that confirms not only that the virus has very recently spread west from Asia, but that two of the new western strains have already independently combined, or "reassorted," to create a new strain.
UC San Diego and University of Hawaii researchers have received $350,000 from U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center to use bioinformatics, grid computing, networking infrastructure and Pacific Rim collaboration to learn more about avian flu.
A new tool can help public health officials better predict when a bird flu pandemic will strike and plan ways to stem its effects. A collaboration of the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business and Carver College of Medicine, the Iowa Health Prediction Market has launched the Avian Flu Market
A new flu vaccine study led by a Saint Louis University researcher appears today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study involved thousands of children across the world.
The yearly influenza vaccine that health officials urge people to get each fall might also offer certain individuals some cross protection against the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Modest changes in the 1918 flu virus's hemagglutinin receptor binding site"”a molecular structure critical for the spread of infection"”stopped viral transmission in ferrets, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Aaron Margolin, professor of microbiology and director of UNH's Virus and Waterborne Disease Laboratory, says that an increase in norovirus outbreaks may be due to better detection and identification of virus. Yet lax sanitation, combined with an aging population and our society's notions about sickness, are hastening the virus's spread.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a portable biosensor for in-field, rapid screening of avian influenza virus. The inexpensive device specifically and sensitively detects the avian influenza strain H5N1 from poultry cloacal or tracheal swab samples in less than 30 minutes and could help health officials coordinate a rapid response for the eradication, quarantine and vaccination of animals.
An Indiana University School of Informatics-led team of researchers has constructed a model that predicts how an emerging pandemic influenza might spread across the globe by airliners. The model they devised is said to be the world's largest-scale epidemic simulation of its kind.
In response to the federal government's high priority for accelerated research to combat bird flu and bioterrorism, the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee has been awarded a five-year, $8.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop a rapid, miniaturized, automated diagnostic device to test for avian flu and the majority of potential bioterrorism agents.
Cornell researchers studied a virus related to the avian influenza virus to see whether a hypothetical mutated form of H5N1 could infect people through drinking and wastewater systems.
Widespread use of the antiviral Tamiflu to fight pandemic avian flu in humans could actually lead to the development of what public health officials hope to avoid"“"“drug-resistant strains of the virus in wild birds.
Though the transmission of the avian bird flu to humans is still considered rare, the threat of a global pandemic is enough for travelers to stay abreast of the latest news. Helping to provide this information is a new article that reviews the avian flu as well as the recommendations for travelers.
A team of researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Queensland in Australia have re-analyzed data from 27 countries around the world to estimate both the global mortality patterns of the 1918 pandemic and, based on 2004 population data, how a similar pandemic would affect the world today.
Auburn University, in collaboration with Vaxin Inc. of Birmingham, Ala., has developed the first "in ovo," or egg-injected, vaccine to protect chickens against the avian influenza virus.
Vaccinating care home staff against influenza can prevent illness, deaths and health service use during periods of moderate influenza activity, concludes a study published online by the BMJ today.
By comparing influenza viruses found in birds with those of the avian virus that have also infected human hosts, researchers have identified key genetic changes required for pandemic strains of bird flu.
As public health officials around the world keep a nervous eye on the spread of avian influenza, the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) has uncovered a key step in how the influenza virus causes infection.
An international team of researchers is using computers to prepare for a possible pandemic influenza, a type of flu that could infect millions of people worldwide.
Infectious diseases expert differentiates between avian and seasonal flu: the signs, symptoms, causes, prevention and treatment.
A new variant of the bird flu virus H5N1 emerged in late 2005 and replaced most of the previous variants across a large part of southern China, despite an ongoing program to vaccinate poultry, according to researchers at the University of Hong Kong in collaboration with scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Opening a new front in the war against flu, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have reported the discovery of a novel compound that confers broad protection against influenza viruses, including deadly avian influenza.
The H1N1 influenza strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic causes a severe immune-system response that likely is what makes the virus so deadly to a host animal or person, according to a new study appearing in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Nature.
One of the most potentially dangerous breeding grounds of disease is woefully ill-prepared for a bird flu crisis, according to a new study being presented today by researchers at Saint Louis University.
The most cost effective and quickest way to respond to a flu pandemic within the next five years is to use existing facilities to make vaccines from cell cultures, new research suggests.
Wearing light solar-powered GPS satellite transmitters, wild swans from Mongolia are winging their way across Eurasia, while land-bound scientists tracking the birds' journeys on computers say that these unique studies will shed light on how wild birds may be involved in the spread of avian influenza.
During the 1918-1920 influenza epidemic, some U.S. communities experienced low morbidity and mortality rates. The Center for the History of Medicine has compiled thousands of pages of primary and secondary source materials on how seven of these communities met the challenge. The materials are now on-line and freely available.
USU faculty have discovered that a treatment for the Spanish Influenza pandemic may also be effective for current Avian Influenza patients. Navy Capt. Edward Kilbane, Army Col. Jeffrey Jackson and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Luke, are all alumni and faculty of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. They, along with retired Navy physician, Capt. Stephen Hoffman, published their research Tuesday, Aug. 29.
States require additional direction and guidance from federal health officials as well as answers to epidemiological questions to adequately develop their pandemic flu plans, according to a report conducted by researchers at RTI International.
The Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) was announced today in a Correspondence letter that appeared online in the journal Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/442981a.html). The 70 signatories to the Nature letter represent more than 40 countries and include six Nobel laureates. GISAID's policies for rapid and complete data releases are modeled upon those established for other initiatives, such as data on DNA sequence variations in the human genome.
Lessons learnt from SARS epidemics in China may help us prepare for new epidemics, such as human avian flu, say experts in this week's BMJ.
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