News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The outbreak of avian influenza in South Korea has spread to at least 14 farms and triggered the culling of 1.2 million chickens and ducks since it was identified in mid-December, according to reports from Asian newspapers.

(CIDRAP News) – Forty-two children have died recently of influenza-related causes, and at least some of them had no underlying health problems, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

Dec 31, 2002 (CIDRAP News) – Individuals receiving smallpox vaccine should wait 3 weeks before donating blood, according to guidance issued yesterday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The recommendations are being issued as a precautionary measure to reduce the "very slight risk" of bloodborne exposure to vaccinia virus in certain patient populations, according to the agency.

(CIDRAP News) – Despite a flood of new federal aid, the states are only modestly better prepared to cope with major health emergencies now than they were before the terrorist attacks of 2001, according to a report by a nonprofit public health advocacy group.

(CIDRAP News) – With influenza spreading rapidly and vaccine supplies running low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended today that people at high risk for flu complications should have priority for vaccination.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government will buy 250,000 doses of influenza vaccine from Aventis Pasteur to augment the nation's dwindling supply, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.