News tagged with influenza pandemic
Manufacturing genes to attack flu virus
An international research team has manufactured a new protein that can combat deadly flu epidemics.
May 27, 2012 |
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Virus 'barcodes' offer rapid detection of mutated strains
Researchers at the University of Leeds are developing a way to 'barcode' viral diseases to rapidly test new outbreaks for potentially lethal mutations.
May 13, 2012 |
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Solar storms join floods, terrorism as risks to UK
(AP) -- Britain has added volcanoes and solar storms to floods, flu and terrorism on a list of threats to national security.
Mar 18, 2012 |
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Opinion: H5N1 flu is just as dangerous as feared, now requires action
The debate about the potential severity of an outbreak of airborne H5N1 influenza in humans needs to move on from speculation and focus instead on how we can safely continue H5N1 research and share the results among researchers, ...
Feb 23, 2012 |
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Go-ahead for bird flu study publication after security check (Update)
Bird flu experts meeting in Geneva on Friday ruled that controversial research on a mutant form of the virus potentially capable of being spread among humans should be made public.
Feb 17, 2012 |
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Bird flu researchers agree to 60-day halt (Update 2)
International scientists on Friday agreed to a temporary two-month halt to controversial research on a bird flu virus that may be easily passed among humans, citing global health concerns.
Jan 20, 2012 |
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Controversial 'bird flu' edits move ahead
Top US scientists on Wednesday defended their bid to stop details of a mutant bird flu virus from being published and called for global cooperation to ward off an uncontrollable pandemic.
Dec 22, 2011 |
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US official says bird flu limits not 'censorship'
Leading US health official Anthony Fauci on Wednesday rejected claims that the United States is censoring science by seeking to limit potentially dangerous bird flu information in major journals.
Dec 21, 2011 |
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Details of lab-made bird flu won't be revealed (Update)
The U.S. government paid scientists to figure out how the deadly bird flu virus might mutate to become a bigger threat to people - and two labs succeeded in creating new strains that are easier to spread.
Dec 20, 2011 |
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Why do some influenza virus subtypes die out?
Every so often we hear about a new strain of influenza virus which has appeared and in some cases may sweep across the globe in a pandemic, much as the H1N1 virus did last year. What happens to the old seasonal viruses? In ...
Nov 14, 2011 |
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Scientists find H1N1 flu virus prevalent in animals in Africa
(PhysOrg.com) -- UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs ...
Sep 23, 2011 |
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'Networking' turns up flu viruses with close ties to pandemic of 2009
Scientists using new mathematical and computational techniques have identified six influenza A viruses that have particularly close genetic relationships to the H1N1 "swine" flu virus that swept through the United States ...
Technology / Computer Sciences
Jun 13, 2011 |
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Swine flu killed more Britons last winter than in pandemic
More people in Britain died after contracting swine flu last winter, with most deaths among young and middle-aged adults, than during the pandemic a year earlier, official figures showed on Wednesday.
Medicine & Health / Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
May 25, 2011 |
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Biosensors: A handy kit
(PhysOrg.com) -- A silicon-based microfluidic chip that distinguishes different viral strains shows potential for the quick on-site diagnosis of infectious diseases.
Apr 14, 2011 |
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WHO's response to swine flu pandemic flawed
(AP) -- An expert panel commissioned by the World Health Organization to investigate its handling of the swine flu pandemic has slammed mistakes made by the U.N. body and warned tens of millions could die if there is a severe ...
Medicine & Health / Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
Mar 10, 2011 |
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Influenza pandemic
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.
For more information about Influenza pandemic, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
