Influenza

Avian influenza (149)
Spanish influenza (1)
Swine influenza (48)

Synopsis: 5. medicine & health: 1. diseases: Diseases: Infectious diseases: Influenza:

A new strain of influenza virus occurs every 1-2 years, for example. But the sudden global explosion of an epidemic that infects a large number of the population oe a pandemic oe is harder to predict.

the Spanish flu of 1918 killed one in five of those infected, some 40-50 million people worldwide,

aged 20-40 (most flu outbreaks kill the very old and young first). However, the global economic slump that resulted from incapacitation

Is China's flu pandemic the next big one? China's flu pandemic: The big one?

Laurie Garrett Foreign policy 24 april 2013 Ten years after Sars, a new virus strikes China, perhaps more deadly,

The H7n9 flu now evolving in China has a lethality about nine times the mortality rate of the Great Influenza of 1918-19,

It's not a bird flu, but what is it, and where does it hide? One week, no food S Abbas Raza Aeon 1 may 2013 Couple fast for seven days.

when we've introduced diseases such as flu, smallpox, HIV or malaria to places where the local people haven't developed adequate immunity.

identify bird flu and figure out what plants the bees that made your honey were pollinating. Damon Little, a curator at the New york Botanical gardens has used it to see

Eating almonds can help the body to fight off viral infections such as the common cold and flu, according to new research.

including those that cause flu and the common cold. They said although they have still to carry out research on how many almonds must be eaten to obtain a beneficial effect,

natural molecules produced by the sheeps immune systems to fend off infections such as influenza or those caused by parasitic worms.

what was presumed to be flu. A doctor began asking him routine questions for medical background. oewhen I told him I drank 10 to 20 bourbons a day,

what was presumed to be flu. A doctor began asking him routine questions for medical background. oewhen I told him I drank 10 to 20 bourbons a day,

#Genetically Modified Chickens Developed Than Cannot Transmit Bird flu Scientists develop GM chickens that do not spread bird flu.

British scientists have developed genetically modified (GM) chickens that cannot transmit bird flu infections#a step that in future could reduce the risk of avian flu spreading

and died when they were exposed to H5n1 bird flu, they didnt transmit the virus to other chickens they came into contact with.

H5n1 bird flu has been circulating in Asia and the Middle east, with occasional outbreaks in Europe, since 2003 and has killed

ECONOMIC AND FOOD SECURITY THREAT In Southeast asia, China and parts of Africa, bird flu is already a major economic and food security issue,

said this week it was raising its bird flu alert level after detecting H5n1 bird flu at poultry farms.

and food security in parts of the world where bird flu is a major threat, but said using them would probably add slightly to farming costs.

the researchers introduced a new gene into them that manufactures a small decoy#molecule that mimics an important control element of the bird flu virus. The replication machinery of the virus is tricked into recognizing the decoy molecule instead of the viral genes

they infected 10 of them and 10 normal chickens with H5n1 bird flu. Like the normal chickens, the transgenic birds became sick with the virus,

The researchers said they now plan to work on trying to make chickens that are fully resistant to bird flu rather than just blocking bird-to-bird transmission.

or for treating influenza. Old people here will start their day with a spoonful of honey.

which deadly influenza strains have emerged. Importantly, consumption of insects can bring along direct and relatively rapid societal benefits.

and kids to remember during cold and flu season but it' s also a smart health move any time —

Causes Sometimes referred to as intestinal flu diarrhea is caused usually by a virus in the bowel

#H7n9 Bird flu Virus Capable of Airborne Transmission One strain of the H7n9 bird flu virus appears to spread easily through the air between ferrets which are a good model for how the virus may spread in humans a new study from China says.

So far there have been no reports of sustained human-to-human transmission with H7n9 bird flu.

But the new findings add to growing evidence that the virus likely needs to undergo just a few genetic mutations to gain the ability to spread between people said Dr. Richard Webby a bird flu expert at St jude Children's Research

See New Bird flu Virus: 6 Things You Should Know. H7n9 emerged in China in February

Researchers know that a flu virus that transmits well between humans will transmit well between ferrets Webby said.

#H7n9 Flu Study Hints at How It May Spread in People It's likely that the new H7n9 bird flu virus can spread through the air on a limited basis according to a new study that looked at how the virus spreads in animals.

whether a person falls ill with flu including their overall health researchers like to study flu viruses in animals under controlled conditions to better understand how they spread said study researcher Dr. Richard Webby a bird-flu expert at St jude

  In the new study researchers infected six ferrets with the H7n9 virus all of whom developed flu symptoms.

Ferrets are considered a good model to study human flu transmission because efficient spread of the flu in ferrets tends to predict efficient spread in people.

Several of the infected ferrets were placed in the same cage as uninfected ferrets. In addition several uninfected ferrets were placed in cages a short distance away from uninfected ferrets to see

The flu virus also spread through the air but less efficiently. Just one of three ferrets caged a short distance from infected ferrets caught the virus. The findings mostly mirror

H7n9 appears to be more infectious than the H5n1 bird flu virus Webby said. When researchers infect ferrets with H5n1 they usually do not see transmission through airborne

#How Deadly H7n9 Flu Could Jump from Birds to Mammals Chinese researchers have found new clues to the origins of the deadly H7n9 flu virus

and also found a new flu virus lurking in birds that could potentially infect mammals.

The new research shows that the deadly H7n9 flu virus which emerged in China in March likely originated in migratory birds was passed to domestic ducks

As the researchers studied the H7n9 flu they found a previously unknown virus called H7n7.

In laboratory tests this H7n7 virus infected ferrets which are used often a model for human flu transmission.

Flu viruses are named for their proteins the H in the name comes from hemagglutinin and the N from neuraminidase.

Both the H7n9 virus and the H7h7 virus belong to the H7 family of viruses. 6 Flu Vaccine Myths There are probably other viruses like H7n7 that are circulating in the poultry populations in China said study

researcher Yi Guan of the Joint Influenza Research Centre in Hong kong. China has about 65 percent of the world's domestic ducks

Many flu viruses Guan noted don't cause people any problems. They spread through poultry populations

But H7-type flu viruses persist and oftenâ evolve into new forms. Vincent Racaniello professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University in New york said this kind of surveillance study is important in finding new viruses and understanding them better.

Guan said the most surprising thing the team found was just how widespread flu viruses are.

Influenza viruses often change as they are transmitted between individuals and species; as H7n9 made its way from migratory to domestic birds it exchanged genes with other types of flu.

That's what gave it the ability infect people the researchers said. A key development for the virus was altering its proteins so it could bind to the cells in the upper respiratory tracts of chickens.

Many varieties of flu live in the birds'intestines but they aren't spread through the air.

and a 2012 study found these measures reduced the spread of influenza. Racaniello emphasized that

#It's Time To Worry About the New Chinese Bird flu: Op-Ed Jeff Nesbitâ was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies

It's time for the world's public health officials to pay very close attention to the new bird flu outbreak in China first detected in March.

 the first reported case of the new bird flu strain outside China; the fact that any potential vaccine tests in animals (not humans) may be up to six weeks out;

Bird-flu Update: Possible Cases of Human-to-Human Transmission Investigated The situation remains complex and difficult

When we look at influenza viruses this is an unusually dangerous virus for humans Keiji Fukuda the World health organization's assistant director-general for health security said Wednesday at a briefing.

Chinese officials nd public health officials around the world ad hoped that this potentially virulent and deadly bird flu strain (H7n9) could be contained inside China

days after returning to Taiwan according to Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center nd the fact that Chinese officials are publicly saying that at least some of the existing cases may have involved human-to-human transmission this new bird flu strain could spread nd fast.

New Bird flu Virus: 6 Things You Should Know None of this is good. Right now 18 percent of the cases in China have ended in deaths.

While this is still less deadly than the previous avian flu outbreak in China six years ago he H5n1 bird flu virus eventually killed more than 300 people after spreading from China to other countries in 2006 he death rate for this new Chinese bird flu

Despite widespread fears among public health officials that the earlier bird flu strain years ago might become a human-to-human pandemic that didn't occur.

Nearly all reported cases of the earlier bird flu strain while deadly seemed to jump from poultry to humans who were handling them or in contact with them.

But if this new bird flu strain does in fact become capable of human-to-human transmission

One flu-virology expert John Oxford from Queen Mary University told Reuters this week that the emergence of this completely new strain of bird flu infections in humans was very very unsettling.

This new strain is in fact a mixture of three different types of bird flu variants and seems to have been quietly spreading in chickens without anyone knowing about it he said.

Public health officials in general have been worried about bird flu viruses for years. Research several years ago showed that the virus could be transmitted from an expectant mother to a fetus

New Rules on Mutant Bird flu Research Stir Debate What's more it could reignite fears about the possibility of deadly global pandemics.

The 2006 Chinese bird flu outbreak came on the heels of those global pandemic warnings. The good news is that China is more transparent about disease epidemics now than it was a decade ago

and that the number of reported cases with the new bird-flu strain has jumped not dramatically so far.

And China learned a lot about how to limit the spread of bird flu after the last outbreaks simply by closing down poultry markets that appear to be likely starting points.

Just because the previous bird flu outbreak in China didn't spread quickly and prove as deadly as some had feared does not mean that this new outbreak will follow a similar course.

Drone Wars in America This article first appeared as It's Time To Worry About the New Chinese Bird flu in the column At the Edge by Jeff Nesbitâ on U s. News & World Report.

#New Bird flu: What the First 82 Cases Reveal Although health officials still haven't confirmed the species of animal that is the source of the H7n9 bird flu outbreak in China most people who fell ill had contact with birds or pigs according to a new report.

The report published online Wednesday (April 24) in the New england Journal of Medicine describes an investigation of the 82 people who were infected with the virus from the beginning of the outbreak (in February and March) through April 17.

So far health officials know of 108 people who've fallen ill with the new strain of bird flu 22 of

which points to poultry markets as the likely source of H7n9 bird flu infections. Other findings from the investigation of the 82 cases include:

Aninvestigation of 82 people infected with the new bird flu virus shows most who fell ill had contact with birds or pigs.

#One Source of Bird flu Virus Found Poultry markets in Shanghai are one likely place where people are contracting the new bird flu virus a new study from China suggests.

So far health officials know of 108 people who've fallen ill with the new strain of bird flu 22 of

which is that people can contract bird flu at poultry markets said Dr. Richard Webby a bird flu expert

Previously reports of infection with the H5n1 strain of bird flu were linked to poultry markets Webby said.

However the new study does not suggest that the new H7n9 bird flu virus originated in Shanghai poultry markets

or that the markets are the only source of infection said Dr. Andy Pavia chief of the University of Utah's Division of Pediatric Infectious diseases and chair of the influenza advisory committee at the Infectious disease Society of America.

New flu viruses can arise when gene segments from different flu strains mix and match.

The new study and others suggest that H7n9 had three genetic parents that combined to make the new virus Pavia said.

It provides a rather unnatural environment where a lot of these different bird species that may have different flu viruses get together

A poultry market Shanghai may be one source of H7n9 bird flu infections. This story was provided by Myhealthnewsdaily a sister site to Livescience.

First Case Detailed in New Report The case of a father and daughter in China who both became infected with H7n9 bird flu provides the strongest evidence yet that the virus can transmit from person to person experts say.

See 6 Things You Should Know About the New Bird flu Genetic testing revealed that the patients were infected with nearly identical strains of H7n9.

Limited human transmission of bird flu viruses has been seen in the past and is not surprising Rudge and Coke said.

Flu The flu season is not over yet. National data from the first weeks of April show that

although seasonal influenza activity is declining flu viruses continue to circulate and cause illness in parts of the U s. For example in New york state the numbers from the second week of April show influenza is still widespread with more than 2500 lab-confirmed cases.

To avoid getting the flu people should get the flu shot and take everyday preventive actions to stop the virus'spread the CDC says.

These include washing hands limiting contact with sick people and avoiding touching your eyes nose and mouth.

as the avian influenza virus is thought to have done. And we still don't know what it might do to someone who is immunocompromised by HIV or by drugs,

Swine flu: Nature Newsa new strain of swine flu-influenza A (H1n1)- is spreading around the globe.

This timeline will be updated continually with key dates, drawing on authoritative information from the World health organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other sources.

For more on the situation see the Nature News swine flu special, and read updates on The Great Beyond blog.

The influenza pandemic policies and responses recommended and taken by WHO were influenced not improperly by the pharmaceutical industry,

and (Tamiflu) for preventing influenza complications. An accompanying editorial says, The review and a linked investigation undertaken jointly by the BMJ

Ministry of Health of Ukraine 1103/en/index. html>reports it has recorded over 250,000 cases of influenza-like illness, with 70 deaths.

Australia begins mass swine flu vaccinations. 25 september 2009: European Medicines Agency recommends approval of two H1n1 vaccines, from Novartis and Glaxosmithkline.

Healthy victims of swine flu should not routinely be given antiviral drugs, the World health organization useantivirals 20090820/en/index. html>warns.

Two Australian companies say they have started human trials of their swine flu vaccines. 16 july 2009: WHO changes reporting requirements for H1n1

The UK moves its swine flu response from'containment'to'treatment'.'Our national focus should be on treating the increasing numbers affected by swine flu,

says health minister Andy Burnham. 29 june 2009: The first case of Tamiflu resistant swine flu has been reported in Denmark 24 june 2009:

Argentinian authorities report that a pig at a pig farm in Buenos aires province has tested positive for the novel H1n1 strain,

South africa confirms its first case of swine flu-offically marking the disease's spread into Sub-saharan africa.

The first swine flu death in Europe has been reported. A woman in Scotland who died with H1n1 had underlying health conditions, according to the Scottish government.

The world is in a full-blown influenza pandemic for the first time in 41 years. 9 june 2009: THE WHO reports that Inuit communities in Canada may be particularly hard-hit.

THE WHO has 0511/en/index. html>confirmed swine flu deaths in Canada and Costa rica, bringing the total number of countries where fatalities have occurred to four.

A modeling study in Science suggests that the virus spreads at a rate comparable to that of previous influenza pandemics.

WHO 0506d/en/index. html>confirms swine flu cases in Sweden and Guatemala. 5 may 2009: Mexico's H1n1 shutdown should begin to ease tomorrow,

The agency also announces it will refer to the virus not as swine flu but as influenza A (H1n1.

First swine-flu death outside Mexico reported as a baby dies in Texas. 161/nn200120/DE/Content/Service/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2009/082009. html>Germany joins European countries with H1n1

and confirms three swine flu cases. THE WHO confirms 7 more cases in Canada, bringing the total number there to 13.28 April 2009:

Seven countries are now reporting 0428/en/index. html>confirmed cases of H1n1 swine flu: the United states, Mexico, Canada, New zealand, the United kingdom, Israel and Spain.

Canada reports six cases of swine flu and Spain reports one. In the United states 40 people have confirmed flu.

In Mexico 26 cases are confirmed, with 7 deaths resulting. Estimates for the true number of deaths hover around 80.

WHO director-general, Margaret Chan calls the flu problem a public health emergency of 0425/en/index. html>international concern.

Earliest onset date of swine flu reaching the United states, according to the CDC. 18 march 2009: Federal district of Mexico 0424/en/index. html>begins to pick up cases of swine flu.

California in clean-fuel drive: Nature Newsthe state of California has adopted regulations to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation fuels,

Patchy pig monitoring may hide flu threat: Nature Newspublic-health experts are warning that a lack of surveillance may be allowing the 2009 pandemic H1n1 flu virus to go undetected in pigs.

This raises the risk that the virus could circulate freely between humans and pigs, making it more likely to reassort into a deadlier strain,

Within minutes of the World health organization (WHO) announcement on 11 june that swine flu had become a pandemic, Bernard Vallat, director-general of an intergovernmental trade body,

But some experts say that is an artefact of patchy to nonexistent flu surveillance in pigs.

2009), Gavin Smith, a flu geneticist at the University of Hong kong, and his colleagues concluded that the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years.

The virus originated from a mixture of swine flu strains, and pigs are an obvious part of the epidemiology of the new virus,

Yet the number of swine-flu sequences in the international Genbank database is about a tenth of that for avian flu viruses.

and a member of the organization's flu task force. It is highly likely that more pigs are infected in more places.

concedes Steve Edwards, chairman of the OIE-FAO Network of Expertise on Animal Influenza (OFFLU),

which coordinates work done by animal-flu surveillance labs worldwide, and former chief executive of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.

Whereas flu surveillance has improved over the past six years in poultry and wild birds, pigs have been below the radar,

says Ilaria Capua, an animal-flu expert at the Experimental Animal health Care Institute of Venice in Legnaro, Italy.

The avian H5n1 flu virus leads to serious disease in poultry and causes huge economic losses,

flu viruses, although common, tend to cause only mild disease, so there is no obligation to report cases of swine flu,

much less take samples for genetic and antigenic analysis. The OIE has asked, however its member states to voluntarily report any occurrences of the 2009 pandemic virus in pigs.

Surveillance for swine flu is not something that has been high on the agenda of government services,

Most flu surveillance in pigs is passive, relying on farmers or vets sending material to government labs. Active targeted surveillance with diagnostic tests is rarer,

OFFLU has called on labs worldwide to share what information they have on swine flu, and to sequence any samples they have obtained recently.

and THE WHO on 21 may the conclusions of which were made public last week recommended scaling up flu surveillance efforts in pigs,

The European Surveillance Network for Influenza in Pigs, which was created in 2001, comprises nine European labs and one in Hong kong.

Although pigs can be infected with many subtypes of flu, the three most common endemic strains are H1n1, H1n2 and H3n2.

Capua showed that serum samples from people vaccinated against seasonal flu strains showed little or no cross reactivity against H1,

This shows that the world needs a comprehensive surveillance system of all influenza subtypes and their evolution across many animal species, says Capua:

Pandemic flu viruses brew for years before going global: Nature Newsfamily trees for pandemic influenza have revealed that components of deadly flu viruses probably lurk in humans

and other animals for years before they emerge as a worldwide threat to human health.

The work suggests that a more thorough characterization of circulating flu viruses could provide clues to an emerging pandemic before it hits.

According to results published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, two genes from the 1918 influenza virus,

would have been present in human and swine flu viruses at least 6 years earlier. During the intervening years

swine and human flu viruses would have swapped genes with avian viruses, ultimately giving rise to the dangerous assortment of genes carried by the 1918 virus. This work suggests that the generation of pandemic strains

swine and human flu viruses and created family trees based on DNA sequence information. By estimating the amount of time it would take to accumulate the differences in DNA sequences found in human and swine viruses,

the researchers determined that a precursor to at least one 1918 flu gene was present in mammals before 1911.

The results run counter to previous hypotheses that the human 1918 flu strain had evolved directly from a bird flu virus2.

and then swapped genes with mammalian flu viruses before becoming a pandemic. Meanwhile, elements of the 1957 pandemic flu virus also thought to be a mosaic of human

and avian flu genes were introduced probably into human populations two to six years before the pandemic, the researchers found.

These analyses were completed before the current pandemic swine flu strain made its mark, but the researchers argue that their results have implications for future pandemics.

Results from 1918 and 1957 pandemic flu suggest that public-health authorities should track the sequences of all influenza virus genes in emerging strains

the authors argue, rather than focusing largely on the gene that encodes the haemagglutinin'protein,

Nevertheless, reliance upon patchy data from historical flu viruses has its limitations. Michael Worobey, who studies pathogen evolution at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says that his own analyses have suggested also that human

Swine flu shares some features with 1918 pandemic: Nature Newsas far as your immune system is concerned, the pandemic H1n1 (swine flu virus currently circling the globe bears an uncanny resemblance to an influenza virus that wreaked havoc nearly a century ago,

researchers have found. For months, it has been apparent that swine flu strikes the young more often than the old an unusual pattern that suggests older patients could have been exposed to similar viruses in the past.

A new study released today By nature suggests that people alive during the infamous 1918 influenza outbreak have the greatest protection against the current swine flu1.

The study also included experiments in a veritable menagerie of animals including mice, miniature pigs, ferrets and macaques.

In all but the pig, the virus yields an infection in the lungs that is more severe than would be expected from an average seasonal flu, according to Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues,

which reported that swine flu reproduces more aggressively and produces more severe disease in ferrets than seasonal flu (see Swine flu reaches into the lungs and gut).

Kawaoka's team observed this virulence in mice and macaques as well, but pigs showed no outward signs of disease

and found that those born before 1918 were more likely to produce antibodies capable of neutralizing the swine flu virus. That protection is somewhat counterintuitive:

But it is still possible that the immune response elicited by one virus can offer protection against the other (see Old seasonal flu antibodies target swine flu virus). Oddly,

At present, most swine flu infections are mild, and the severity of the present pandemic does not come close to the 1918 flu,

but experts worry that the new virus could become more virulent over time. Meanwhile, the virulence seen in the animal studies is disquieting,

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