News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Delegates from 193 countries met today in Geneva at the start of the World Health Assembly (WHA), which will address several infectious disease topics, including a report from an independent pandemic review committee, a virus-sharing agreement, and the fate of the world's remaining smallpox virus stocks.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) working group on influenza virus sharing capped off a week of negotiations with a final agreement that establishes a framework for sharing vaccine strains alongside a system for improving the flow of pandemic vaccine and medications to developing countries.

(CIDRAP News) – Leaders from a World Health Organization (WHO) working group on virus sharing and vaccine issues related to pandemic preparedness today said they hope to reach an agreement by Friday (Apr 15) so that it could go to the World Health Assembly (WHA) for a vote in May.

(CIDRAP News) – While donor countries and organizations have responded well to the need for pandemic flu vaccine for developing countries, the level of giving for other pandemic response efforts in needy countries so far has fallen short, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a recent report.

(CIDRAP News) – Norwegian scientists today reported a pandemic H1N1 virus mutation that appears to be associated with severe disease, but a leading US flu expert said global data on the mutation don't show a clear connection with severe illness.

(CIDRAP News) – Decreasing pandemic flu activity and growing supplies of vaccine offer a window of opportunity for people to protect themselves from the virus, especially if the nation experiences a third wave of infections, Thomas Frieden, MD, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The European Union (EU) has approved Novartis's seasonal influenza vaccine, Optaflu, putting the Swiss company in a position to become the first to market a flu vaccine grown in cell culture rather than eggs.

(CIDRAP News) – Sanofi Pasteur today announced the start of the first clinical trial of an H7N1 influenza vaccine, intended to guard against the threat of a pandemic caused by H7 strains of avian influenza.

Current concern about a flu pandemic focuses mainly on the H5N1 avian flu virus, which has infected at least 247 people and killed 144. But H7 avian flu viruses have caused a number of mild illness cases and one death in the past 3 years.