French, US drug firms team up for Covid-flu shot
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and struggling US rival Novavax announced Friday an alliance to sell a COVID vaccine and develop another that combines with a flu shot.
May 10, 2024
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French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and struggling US rival Novavax announced Friday an alliance to sell a COVID vaccine and develop another that combines with a flu shot.
May 10, 2024
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As a new virus takes center stage at the heart of a global outbreak, it's easy to get flashbacks of March 2020.
May 10, 2024
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The bird flu has arrived in Colorado, and while it doesn't represent anywhere near the threat that COVID-19 did at the beginning of the pandemic, people should take some precautions with animals that could carry it, experts ...
May 8, 2024
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Doctors in Texas are describing the only known human case of H5N1 avian flu connected to the ongoing outbreak of the disease in dairy cows.
May 3, 2024
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It might start simply, with a cough or sneeze, but in some cases, the flu virus can make its way to your brain, causing serious symptoms or even death through a disease known as influenza-associated encephalopathy (IAE).
May 2, 2024
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A study by James Cook University researchers, and published in Talanta, has produced damning findings on several COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RATs) available in Australia and overseas.
May 2, 2024
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Texas health officials last month confirmed a case of bird flu in a person. Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that it has found evidence of the virus in commercially sold milk.
May 2, 2024
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People drinking raw unpasteurized milk are at risk for potentially contracting bird flu, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned May 1.
May 2, 2024
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In light of the United States Food and Drug Administration's announcement that bird flu has been discovered in cow's milk, board-certified infectious disease physician Carl Abraham, M.D., assistant professor at New York Institute ...
May 2, 2024
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The WHO said Tuesday it was being frequently updated by Washington about the bird flu outbreak in the United States—the only country so far where dairy cows have been infected.
Apr 30, 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