Advanced supply contracts to provide the vaccine for a possible flu pandemic were today awarded by the Department of Health to pharmaceutical company GSK and Baxter Healthcare.
The Ministry of Health of Indonesia has announced a new case of human infection of H5N1 avian influenza. A 17-year-old female from Tangerang District, in Banten Province developed symptoms on 9 August , was hospitalized on 13 August and died in hospital on 14 August.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it has entered into an agreement with the UK Government to provide its pandemic influenza vaccine in the event of a flu pandemic. It is one of the largest contracts signed by GSK to date for its proprietary adjuvanted pandemic flu vaccine.
Australia is experiencing a worse than normal influenza season in 2007, with increased numbers of cases being reported across several states and territories.
Scientists at Cure Lab, Inc., a biotechnology company based in Canton, Massachusetts, in collaboration with researchers at Boston University and Harvard Medical School have discovered a potential new target for the development of anti-influenza (flu) drugs, including those that may be effective against potentially pandemic influenza strains like H5N1.
Most flu immunization plans in the United States do not address how to vaccinate hard-to-reach populations — undocumented immigrants, substance users, the homeless, homebound elderly, and minorities — and this potentially dangerous omission can lead masses of people to become ill during an outbreak of pandemic flu or other contagious disease, according to a new study by the New York Academy of Medicine in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Health.
In a new study in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, kinesiologists at the University of Illinois suggest that older adults who adopt an exercise regimen combining Taiji and Qigong may get an extra boost from their annual flu shot.
Preparing vaccines and therapeutics that target a future mutant strain of H5N1 influenza virus sounds like science fiction, but it may be possible, according to a team of scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a collaborator at Emory University School of Medicine.
School closures and other community strategies designed to reduce the possibility of spreading disease between people during an epidemic can save lives, particularly when the measures are used in combination and implemented soon after an outbreak begins in a community, according to a new study based on public records from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.
Although physicians have imposed quarantine orders since at least 1374, when the Port of Venice officially isolated foreigners and shippers for 40 days to keep out infectious scourges, there has been no definitive evidence that public health measures like quarantining the sick and isolating people after exposure to ill people would save lives during an influenza pandemic.