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) – An epidemiologic study from Denmark has raised the possibility that influenza and fever during pregnancy increase the risk of autism in infants, but the findings are far from conclusive.

(CIDRAP News) – The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) today confirmed a link between narcolepsy and pandemic 2009 H1N1 vaccination in children in Finland and Sweden, the two countries that originally reported a problem with the vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – As researchers continue to sort out safety issues surrounding the monovalent vaccine used during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, two new reports focusing mainly on an adjuvanted version suggest that immunization was safe for babies born to vaccinated pregnant women and that it was linked to a small but significant risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in some patients.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health groups today commended the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) voluntary approach to reducing the growth-promotion uses of antibiotics in farm animals but voiced some concern that the policy may hurt animal health and lead to higher meat prices.

(CIDRAP News) – Infectious-disease specialty groups are teaming up to call for increased use of antimicrobial stewardship programs, saying such efforts can help preserve the effectiveness of anti-infective drugs while reducing medical costs.