News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Perth, Australia, last week advised parents to seek medical care quickly for young children with respiratory symptoms, after three children under age 5 died of pneumonia as a complication of "mild" influenza A infections.

(CIDRAP News) – As seasonal influenza makes its annual march across the country, surveillance data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that 23% of the viruses that have been identified belong to a strain that is not included in this season's vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that most circulating influenza B viruses tested so far this season don't match this year's vaccine, signaling that two of the three vaccine components are off-target.

– ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) – Serious microbial threats, including drug-resistant influenza and foodborne pathogens, remain stubbornly persistent even as unpredictable new threats are emerging, researchers said this week at the leading international conference on new and resurgent infectious diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – The number of children who have died from a combination of influenza infection and bacterial pneumonia—in many cases due to the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)—has risen sharply over the past few years, federal epidemiologists say in a new report that urges flu shots as a preventative.

(CIDRAP News) – Clostridium difficile, rapidly gaining as a source of hospital-acquired infections, is sickening from 6 to 20 times more patients than previously thought, according to a survey released today by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

(CIDRAP News) – At an Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) symposium in Washington, DC, today on seasonal and pandemic influenza, a group of experts fielded questions from reporters on some of the new trends and emerging issues, including prepandemic strategies for H5N1 avian influenza vaccines, now that some countries are stockpiling them.

Editor's note: The item on the Salmonella outbreak was revised Feb 19 to correct information on case numbers for specific states.