The pandemic H1N1 influenza virus is unexpectedly continuing to spread easily through the United States during the summer months, and health authorities expect a bump in transmission in about six weeks, when school goes back into session — perhaps two or three months earlier than is normally seen with seasonal flu.
"Every year, there is an increase in flu when children go back to school" and viruses are being shared in close quarters, Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Friday in a telephone news conference. "This year, it is already circulating in summer camps, military units and so forth, so we are expecting when school opens we will see [a bigger than normal] increase."
(CNN) — If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words “flu symptoms” to see whether you’ve come down with influenza.
Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you’re in. Now, it’s putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.
Indonesia’s health ministry reported today that two men have died of H5N1 avian influenza over the past 3 months, marking the government’s first official announcement of human cases since early June, when it said it would provide periodic updates instead of case-by-case notifications.
The update—in Bahasa, the language of Indonesia—appeared on the health ministry’s Web site, Bloomberg News reported. So far, the government has not posted an English version of the update on the main ministry site or that of the country’s avian flu committee.
(Bloomberg) — Apathy toward the pandemic risk posed by bird flu is one of the greatest threats to public health and may undermine efforts to improve disease detection and control systems in developing countries, a World Health Organization official said.
Health authorities have been monitoring the H5N1 strain of avian influenza for more than a decade for any sign that it is becoming as contagious as seasonal flu. While millions of birds have been infected, fewer than 400 people are reported to have contracted the illness, including 36 this year.
Novavax, Inc. (NVAX: News ), a clinical stage biotechnology company, announced favorable results from the second stage of Phase I/IIa human clinical trial of its pandemic influenza vaccine candidate.
The influenza virus-like particle, or VLP, vaccine is directed against the H5N1 A/Indonesia/05/2005 avian influenza strain.
VLPs are recombinant structures mimicking the size and shape of the virus but lack genetic material and are therefore incapable of replication. However, they are able to induce an immune response. And in clinical trials it produced strong neutralizing antibody responses.
OTTAWA — Officials at Ottawa Hospital’s general campus are investigating two deaths that may be linked to a para-influenza outbreak there.
Dr. Virginia Ross, the director of infection control, says 15 patients in the haematology and bone marrow unit have been infected and two have died. But she says it’s not yet clear if the virus caused their deaths. In healthy people, the virus causes common cold symptoms but patients in the affected unit already have compromised immune systems.
