News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – China's H7N9 influenza outbreak was one of the high-profile disease topics in the opening address today for the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), as two global health groups issued new assessments of the risk to humans and the poultry trade.

(CIDRAP News) – The novel H1N1 (swine) influenza now circling the globe causes more serious lung disease than seasonal flu strains and sheds from the lung and throat tissue where it reproduces at higher rates, according to two animal studies published today—findings that could explain autopsies and case reports of severe pneumonia as well as the virus's rapid spread.