News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) –Pandemic activity is showing early signs of peaking in some parts of North America, but is on the rise in several European countries as well as those in Central and Eastern Asia, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.

Jun 3, 2009

(CIDRAP News) – As polio eradication efforts lost ground in 2008, 15 African countries bore the brunt of the spread of the disease with multiple importations of wild poliovirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its global health partners reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Minnesota health officials said today that they are investigating the death last month of a Minnesotan who was infected with a polio virus strain found in the oral polio vaccine (OPV).

(CIDRAP News) – The world lost some ground last year in its 20-year push to eradicate polio, mainly because the disease has spread to new parts of Nigeria and because conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan have made it difficult to get vaccines to children, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists who analyzed 67 H5N1 avian influenza viruses from across Africa report that the viruses fall into three distinct sublineages, or families, and that some have mutations that make them resistant to antiviral drugs.