Pig Testing For H7N9 To Begin China’s agriculture authority has expanded the monitoring for the H7N9 strain of bird flu to pigs in order to have a better understanding of the H7N9. Monitoring pigs, in addition to poultry and wild birds, may provide a deeper understanding of H7N9, including its origin, host range, route of transmission and the degree of harm. Experts said that pigs have been included in the plan in an effort to [...]
Is the Annual Influenza Vaccine Effective? Maybe, Maybe Not…New Study Not Terribly Encouraging
One of my favorite blogs is one done by Vincent Rancaniello. He makes diseases and viruses, well fun! His latest blog discusses new studies out on the influenza vaccine. He notes that since 1967 there have been 5,707 studies on how well influenza vaccine protects against infection. Many of them did not properly assess whether individuals were infected with influenza, leading to overestimation of the protective effect of vaccines. In many studies a four-fold increase [...]
Every Thought About Catching A Disease While On A Plane? “Down Under” Reports Multiple Cases Of Measles After Exposure After Air Travel
I fly about 200,000 miles a year and I always think about this every time I enter a plane. Part of that concern comes from my background in nursing and other is frankly antidotal. In this week, CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), there was a most interesting article about disease transmission attributed to air travel. If you are an air traveler read on…or perhaps you would rather not! On January 2011, measles was [...]
Got Measles? A widespread outbreak of measles is reported across Europe during European Immunization Week. Go figure?
Approximately 6,500 cases of measles have been reported in 30 countries in WHO’s European Region during the first few months of 2011, according to a WHO press release issued today. France faces the largest outbreak, with 4,937 measles cases officially reported from January to March, which is close to the 5,090 cases reported for all of 2010. The national immunization system is implementing measures to immunize children during the outbreak, including infants at aged 9 [...]
