Long flu season winds down in US
The U.S. flu season appears to be over. It was long, but it wasn't unusually severe.
14 hours ago
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The U.S. flu season appears to be over. It was long, but it wasn't unusually severe.
14 hours ago
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The discovery of traces of the bird flu virus in pasteurized cow milk in the United States sparked questions over whether the disease could spread to humans, but experts say there is little risk from food contamination.
Apr 25, 2024
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The World Health Organization (WHO) called Wednesday for a strengthening of global detection networks for the H5N1 bird flu virus which infected a large number of animal species.
Apr 24, 2024
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US health authorities said Tuesday they had discovered fragments of bird flu virus in the nation's pasteurized cow milk supply during the course of a large study, but the samples likely posed no health risk to humans.
Apr 24, 2024
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The World Health Organization voiced alarm Thursday at the growing spread of H5N1 bird flu to new species, including humans, who face an "extraordinarily high" mortality rate.
Apr 18, 2024
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Metabolic health (normal blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, among other factors) influences the effectiveness of influenza vaccinations. Vaccination is known to be less effective in people with obesity compared ...
Apr 18, 2024
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COVID boosters are now available to purchase from high-street pharmacies and private health care providers in England. This means that millions of people who don't qualify for a free COVID vaccine on the NHS will be able ...
Apr 17, 2024
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Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.
Apr 15, 2024
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Monday they have met with state health leaders in Georgia and around the country, telling them to be prepared for more human cases of bird flu after a dairy worker ...
Apr 9, 2024
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The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a health alert after the first case of H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, seemingly spread from a cow to a human.
Apr 8, 2024
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Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses), that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza comes from the Italian influenza, meaning "influence" (Latin: influentia). The most common symptoms of the disease are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Fever and coughs are the most frequent symptoms. In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly for the young and the elderly. Although it is often confused with other influenza-like illnesses, especially the common cold, influenza is a much more severe disease than the common cold and is caused by a different type of virus. Influenza may produce nausea and vomiting, particularly in children, but these symptoms are more common in the unrelated gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called "stomach flu" or "24-hour flu".
Typically, influenza is transmitted through the air by coughs or sneezes, creating aerosols containing the virus. Influenza can also be transmitted by bird droppings, saliva, nasal secretions, feces and blood. Infection can also occur through contact with these body fluids or through contact with contaminated surfaces. Airborne aerosols have been thought to cause most infections, although which means of transmission is most important is not absolutely clear. Influenza viruses can be inactivated by sunlight, disinfectants and detergents. As the virus can be inactivated by soap, frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection.
Influenza spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually — millions in pandemic years. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people, with each of these pandemics being caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans. Often, these new strains appear when an existing flu virus spreads to humans from other animal species, or when an existing human strain picks up new genes from a virus that usually infects birds or pigs. An avian strain named H5N1 raised the concern of a new influenza pandemic, after it emerged in Asia in the 1990s, but it has not evolved to a form that spreads easily between people. In April 2009 a novel flu strain evolved that combined genes from human, pig, and bird flu, initially dubbed "swine flu", emerged in Mexico, the United States, and several other nations. WHO officially declared the outbreak to be a "pandemic" on June 11, 2009.
Vaccinations against influenza are usually given to people in developed countries and to farmed poultry. The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically, this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain. The TIV carries no risk of transmitting the disease, and it has very low reactivity. A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus evolves rapidly, and new strains quickly replace the older ones. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat influenza, with neuraminidase inhibitors being particularly effective.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA