Wednesday 14 07 10 21:00 UTC THE US is holding off approval of this year's flu shot as it probes Australia's ban on the fever-inducing vaccine for young children. |
Wednesday 14 07 10 14:03 UTC AstraZeneca Canada Inc. announced today that Health Canada has approved FluMist (Influenza Vaccine, Live, Attenuated) for the prevention of seasonal influenza. FluMist is the first vaccine in Canada that is administered as a gentle mist sprayed into the nose. |
Thursday 08 07 10 11:00 UTC USAID Program To Prevent Spread Of Bird Flu In Bangladesh Expands All Headline News reports on a USAID-funded initiative to prevent the spread of bird flu in Bangladesh... |
Tuesday 06 07 10 23:39 UTC Reuters - Songbirds such as sparrows and thrushes carry various forms of bird flu and could potentially spread the viruses to pigs and poultry, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. |
Tuesday 06 07 10 12:00 UTC Intercell AG (VSE: ICLL) announced the results of a Phase II clinical trial of its investigational Vaccine Enhancement Patch (VEP) system for avian H5N1 influenza. In this development program, Intercell is working under a contract with the U.S... |
Monday 05 07 10 12:00 UTC The Ministry of Health of Indonesia has announced a new case of human infection of H5N1 avian influenza. A 34-year-old female from South Jakarta District, DKI Jakarta Province developed symptoms on 25 May, was hospitalized on 27 May and died on 1 June. Laboratory tests were positive for H5N1 virus infection. The case was possibly infected from environmental exposure to manure in her plant nursery. |
Friday 02 07 10 20:06 UTC
Swine flu gives influenza a good name - and health protection a bad one, writes
Geoffrey Lean.
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Thursday 01 07 10 19:14 UTC
This blog is no longer called Fergus on Flu, but I'm still happy to talk about pandemics.
Boiling down nearly 200 pages to two words, the Hine review's verdict on the UK response to H1N1 can be summed up as "highly satisfactory". Dame Deidre Hine repeatedly praises the planning and the response to the pandemic last year.
That said, there is a series of lessons to be learned, in particular about contract negotiations with vaccine manufacturers. She says the failure, in 2007, to negotiate get-out clauses in the vaccine contract "exposed the Exchequer to some risk". In other words, it cost the tax-payer money and we were left with lots of unused doses of vaccine. What Dame Deirdre does not tell us, because of commercial confidentiality, is how much that cost us.
Before condemning ministers and officials for poor planning, it's worth pointing out that no country in the world managed to negotiate a break clause with GlaxoSmithKline for its Pandemrix H1N1 vaccine.
Furthermore, had the pandemic been as bad as everyone originally feared, those extra doses of vaccine might have saved tens of thousands of lives.
Once last point. Given how mild the H1N1 pandemic was, how on earth are health officials and virologists ever going to interest the public in the potential dangers of the next pandemic? The next one may be a lot more serious.
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Thursday 01 07 10 18:01 UTC
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Thursday 01 07 10 14:35 UTC
Official report into the outbreak said that the death toll could have been
much higher but for the swift response and mild nature of the disease.
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Thursday 01 07 10 11:29 UTC
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Tuesday 29 06 10 11:20 UTC Scientists have identified a new, highly conserved molecular target on the influenza A virus and demonstrated that human antibodies against this target are protective in animal models of seasonal and highly-pathogenic avian influenza. The work was conducted by researchers at Theraclone Sciences, with collaborators at University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Tokyo and Johns Hopkins University; and is reported this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
Thursday 24 06 10 19:00 UTC H1N1 Influenza Public Health Emergency Determination to Expire on June 23 |
Tuesday 22 06 10 23:00 UTC This document announces a new influenza diagnostic test developed by CDC that was FDA authorized today for use in detecting human infections with the 2009 H1N1 virus. |
Tuesday 22 06 10 20:09 UTC Proposed updated guidance for seasonal influenza and the Interim Guidance on Infection Control Measures for 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Healthcare Settings, Including Protection of Healthcare Personnel has been published in the Federal Register, along with a Request for Comments. The comment period began on June 22, and will end on July 22. All comments received during the comment period will be considered, following which final guidance will posted on the CDC web site. |
Friday 18 06 10 01:30 UTC The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today warned consumers about a potentially harmful product represented as Generic Tamiflu sold over the Internet. FDA tests revealed that the fraudulent product does not contain Tamiflu’s active ingredient, oseltamivir, but cloxacillin, an ingredient in the same class of antibiotics as penicillin. |
Wednesday 16 06 10 00:40 UTC Mice injected with a 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine and then exposed to high levels of the virus responsible for the 1918 influenza pandemic do not get sick or die, report scientists funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. |
Monday 14 06 10 23:05 UTC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) June 11, 2010 / 59(22);682-686 |
Thursday 10 06 10 12:00 UTC On Friday 4 June 2010, the BMJ, formerly British Medical Journal, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) simultaneously released reports critical of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 pandemic. WHO takes the issues and concerns that were raised seriously and wishes to set the record straight on several points. |
Monday 07 06 10 08:58 UTC
AFP - A young pregnant woman has died of bird flu, China's Health Ministry said, the first reported fatality from the virus since early last year.
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