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Can a Movie Convince People to Fight the Flu?

Coverall — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:29:12 +0000

Infection Control Today

September 2011

Imagine this: A dangerous virus, with origins in the Southern Hemisphere, is about to begin infecting millions of Americans and could end up killing tens of thousands. At the same time, federal, state and local health officials are marshalling resources to defend against an outbreak that has the potential to overwhelm the country’s healthcare system.

Though it may seem eerily similar to the plot of the feature film ‘Contagion,’ this scenario is not a work of fiction. The virus in question is seasonal influenza and, since last winter, public health officials have studied outbreaks in Australia and other areas south of the equator to develop this year’s flu vaccine.

Old osteoporosis drug may help in killing flu viruses

COVERALL.COM — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:09:45 +0000

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A old osteoporosis drug may be effective in killing a range of influenza viruses, including ones that are very dangerous to people like the H5N1 bird flu virus, scientists in Hong Kong reported on Wednesday.

Unlike antiviral drugs that target and mute flu viruses, the drug pamidronate boosts a certain class of human immune cells and sets them off on a killing spree to exterminate host cells that are infected with flu viruses.

The experts, who published their findings in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, described the immune cells — called gamma-delta T-cells — as being able to recognize host cells that are infected with flu viruses. They punch holes through the membrane of the infected cells, then secrete and inject an enzyme into the cells, killing them.

Study Finds Two-Seat ‘Hot Zone’ for Flu Spread on Planes

COVERALL.COM — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:46:47 +0000

Denise Mann, HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) — During the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, some people stopped flying out of fear of catching the virus while in the close quarters of an airplane cabin, but a new study shows that the “danger zone” for flu transmission is just a two-seat circumference around where you are sitting.

It had been thought that this hot zone was much larger, according to research published in the July issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

‘Networking’ turns up flu viruses with close ties to pandemic of 2009

COVERALL.COM — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:36:23 +0000

Daniel Janies, via EurekAlert!

June 13, 2011 (Ohio State University) – Scientists using new mathematical and computational techniques have identified six influenza A viruses that have particularly close genetic relationships to the H1N1 “swine” flu virus that swept through the United States beginning in the spring of 2009. That virus eventually killed almost 18,000 people worldwide.

Biological studies focused on these strains of influenza virus could shed light on how the 2009 pandemic strain of influenza emerged, aiding in efforts to forestall another pandemic, the researchers say.

Five of these viruses were isolated from pigs, and the sixth had infected a human who worked with hogs.

FDA OKs Flu Shot With Smaller Needle

COVERALL.COM — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:25:10 +0000

Bill Hendrick Staff Writer

May 12, 2011 (WebMD Health News)– The FDA has approved the first flu shot to be injected with a tiny needle into a skin layer called the dermis rather than into muscle.

The new needle is expected to be available for adults for the 2011-2012 flu season.

The French drugmaker Sanofi Pasteur says the company’s Fluzone Intradermal vaccine will be administered with a needle less than one-tenth of an inch long. That’s 90% shorter than those used now in the U.S., and therefore won’t need to be inserted as deeply.

In general, current influenza shots are injected deep into muscle tissue with a needle that can be 1 to 1.5 inches long.

Absenteeism From Pandemic Flu Greater Than From Seasonal Flu

COVERALL.COM — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:14:49 +0000

Infection Control Today

April 13, 2011

As many respiratory viruses are responsible for influenza like symptoms, accurate measures of the disease burden are not available and estimates are generally based on statistical methods. Dena L Schanzer, of the Infectious Disease and Prevention and Control Branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and colleagues, sought to estimate absenteeism rates and hours lost due to seasonal influenza and compare these estimates with estimates of absenteeism attributable to the two H1N1 pandemic waves that occurred in 2009.

Flu in the 21st Century

COVERALL.COM — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:15:11 +0000

March 19, 2011

The Huffington Post

Susan Blumenthal, M.D.

Public Health Editor at HuffPost and Former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General

Written in collaboration with Brigitte Hurtubise and Sophie Turrell

Flights grounded, business interrupted, animals slaughtered, large gatherings discouraged, and quarantines enacted. Millions of people dead. While this may sound like a nightmare scenario scripted by Hollywood, these events have actually happened — and may again as a result of a flu pandemic.

But it doesn’t take a highly lethal form of flu to have a life-threatening impact. Since 1976, the seasonal flu (the effects of which vary greatly by season) has killed between 3,000 to 49,000 people (1) in the United States every year and as many as 500,000 annually worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) (2,3).

Ninety percent of deaths from the flu are in persons aged 65 and older (4). In the 2009-2010 U.S. flu season, there were a total of 2,125 deaths from seasonal flu and an estimated 12,000 from H1N1 (5,6) — a number that is comparable to the U.S. yearly death rate from AIDS (7). Every year 25 to 50 million people acquire influenza in the U.S. and 225,000 of them are hospitalized for the illness (8). A recent CDC report suggests that the number of flu cases is higher than expected in several states for this time in the season (9). The flu’s economic impact is also significant, costing an estimated $87 billion annually in the United States, mostly due to lost wages and productivity (10). Clearly, this is not a disease that can be ignored.

Antibiotics May Make Fighting Flu Harder

COVERALL.COM — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:07:44 +0000

Drugs hit beneficial bacteria that keep immune system alert

U.S. News & World Report

Posted: March 15, 2011

By Tina Hesman Saey, Science News

Taking antibiotics when they aren’t necessary could make the flu or other viral infections worse, a new study suggests.

Mice on antibiotics can’t fight the flu as well as mice that haven’t taken the drugs, say researchers from Yale. Antibiotics quash the immune system’s infection-fighting power by killing friendly bacteria living in the intestines, the researchers report in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These friendly, or “commensal,” bacteria help defend against viruses by keeping the immune system on alert for viral invaders, the team discovered.

Pandemic flu still a threat, warn scientists

COVERALL.COM — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:52:32 +0000

AFP

By Marlowe Hood (AFP) – March 12, 2011

PARIS — The H1N1 swine flu that swept the globe in 2009/10 could easily morph into a more transmissible form, while an older, mid-20th century virus could also come roaring back, scientists warned this week in separate studies.

The so-called Asian influenza, a H2N2 strain, first appeared in 1957 and killed one to four million people despite a major vaccination campaign.

Studies have shown that most people today aged 50 or older retain some immunity to the virus, which continues to circulate in birds and swine.

Those younger, however, are acutely vulnerable to H2N2, which increases the chance that the potentially lethal strain will jump back into humans and once again spread across the world.

Flu Shots: Panacea or Propaganda?

COVERALL.COM — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:32:23 +0000

The Huffington Post

Mark Hyman, MD

Posted: March 7, 2011 08:24 AM

Though in some cases I am pro-vaccine, I am not pro-flu vaccine, because its effectiveness remains unproven and its safety in question.

The importance of vaccines in advancing public health cannot be overstated. Last year, after the earthquake in Haiti, I cared for a man dying of tetanus. There is no excuse for his death. Today, even in the remotest villages on the planet, villages without television and cell service people can quench their thirst with a bottle of Coca-Cola. We should have been able provide a vaccine for tetanus. Sanitation, clean water and other social and structural changes in society led to the reduction of deaths from infectious disease. Smallpox has been eradicated through a global vaccination policy. Whopping cough, polio and other childhood diseases have been reduced through successful vaccination programs. Vaccinations are one of the greatest advances in medicine in the 20th century.

But just because vaccinations have worked so well for prevention of some diseases, does not mean that all vaccines are effective or safe. Vaccinations are a medical procedure and should be subject to the same standard of evidence and rigorous scientific inquiry before strong recommendations are made for their global application by government institutions.