News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A spokesman for Panasonic Corp. said today that the company had no proprietary information about any increased risk of an influenza pandemic in December 2008 when it instructed some of its overseas employees to send their families back to Japan by September.

(CIDRAP News) – News reports that Panasonic Corp. has asked some of its overseas employees to send their families home to Japan because of the threat of pandemic influenza fueled puzzlement and speculation today about the global H5N1 risk and whether other companies might follow suit.

(CIDRAP News) – Antiviral medications and vaccines are two tools that many government and health officials hope will stall the spread of an influenza pandemic, but each strategy has daunting challenges, according to a new report from Congress's Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – An influenza pandemic would reduce the gross domestic products of the world's major economies by amounts ranging from 9% in China to 3% in Canada, according to a recent report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE).

(CIDRAP News) – The United States proposed today that a small group of experts be appointed immediately to plan a fast response in case an influenza pandemic erupts, as an international conference on avian and pandemic flu continued in Geneva.

(CIDRAP News) – The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche announced today it would build a plant in the United States to make oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and also consider licensing other companies to make the drug in the face of a possible flu pandemic.