China has been the origin of several major viral epidemics over recent decades, with the current outbreak of a new deadly coronavirus emerging in the central city of Wuhan.
Jan 22, 2020
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The global death toll from COVID-19, which is set to pass five million, is already far worse than most other viral epidemics of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Nov 1, 2021
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With 1.4 million confirmed cases and 81,000 deaths worldwide as of this writing, the coronavirus pandemic has become a global tragedy unlike any in our lifetimes. But, as historians remind us, this is neither our first nor ...
Apr 10, 2020
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(Medical Xpress) -- A new vaccine is being tested in the US that may protect against the norovirus, which causes "stomach flu" or acute viral gastroenteritis, that can occur in confined living settings such as cruise ships, ...
Scientists said Monday they had discovered immune cells that can fight all known flu viruses in what was hailed as an "extraordinary breakthrough" that could lead to a universal, one-shot vaccine against the killer disease.
Feb 18, 2019
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The Spanish flu outbreak 100 years ago is the modern world's deadliest epidemic, its toll of more than 50 million surpassing that of World War I.
Mar 9, 2018
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(AP) -- For the first time, scientists have found evidence of flu in bats, reporting a never-before-seen virus whose risk to humans is unclear.
Feb 27, 2012
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Australia has recorded 221,853 flu infections so far in 2017, more than any other year. As the flu season comes to an end, we're beginning to understand why it was so bad. And it wasn't because of increased, or more sensitive, ...
Nov 2, 2017
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Noroviruses are believed to make up half of all food-borne disease outbreaks in the United States, causing incapacitating (and often violent) stomach flu. These notorious human pathogens are responsible for 90 percent of ...
Feb 17, 2012
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A flu epidemic gripping the United States is more severe than usual, striking the elderly especially hard, health authorities said Friday as they also announced 29 child victims.
Jan 19, 2013
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An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in recent history. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the Spanish influenza estimated as being responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years. The most recent ones were the Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.
Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species causing outbreaks in domestic poultry and may give rise to human influenza pandemics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns[when?] that there is a substantial risk of an influenza pandemic within the next few years[when?]. One of the strongest candidates is a highly pathogenic variation of the H5N1 subtype of Influenza A virus. As of 2006, prepandemic influenza vaccines are being developed against the most likely suspects which include H5N1, H7N1, and H9N2. Certain scholars and senior policy advisors argue that pandemic influenza represents a substantive threat to the international economy, to each nation's national security, and a challenge to international governance.
On 11 June 2009, a new strain of H1N1 influenza was declared to be a global pandemic (Stage 6) by the World Health Organization after evidence of spreading in the southern hemisphere.
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