News & Perspective

Editor's Note: The fourth paragraph was revised on Jan 2 to clarify the current situation regarding H3N2 dominance.

(CIDRAP News) – US influenza activity continued its ascent last week, judging from the high volumes of patients seeking care for the disease at doctors' offices, while flu indicators in Europe showed a clear spike, according to the latest surveillance reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Flu activity in the Northern Hemisphere continued to climb last week, led by a vigorous pace of infections in the United States and Canada in the lead-up to the Christmas holiday season, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Influenza is widespread in eight US states, and some other indicators of an early flu season continue to rise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

The percentage of patients' respiratory samples testing positive for flu grew to 20.7% in the week ending Dec 1, up from 15.2% the week before. And, as before, the H3N2 strain continues to dominate, which can be a sign of a more severe flu season.

(CIDRAP News) – Following the recent retrospective confirmation of two fatal infections with a novel coronavirus (CoV) in Jordan, the Jordanian health ministry said no more such cases have surfaced in the country since April, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – European health officials are seeing a continued rise in multiple antibiotic resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli, a pattern they say is likely fueled by misuse of the drugs, according to new data.

(CIDRAP News) – A government advisory committee yesterday endorsed the safety and immunogenicity of an adjuvant-containing H5N1 influenza vaccine proposed for inclusion in the US pandemic emergency stockpile, signaling that it could become the first adjuvanted flu vaccine to win approval in the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent editorial calling for requiring influenza shots in healthcare workers (HCWs) has stirred debate in the pages of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), with two groups of researchers questioning the quality of the evidence that the vaccinations protect patients.