News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Three large, multi-center studies now in the enrollment stage will assess whether such approaches as a combination of antiviral drugs or the use of borrowed antibodies can improve on existing treatments for influenza, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts who have studied the 1918 pandemic have long puzzled over why the mortality rate in young adults was so high, a feature that might be explained by pathologic immune responses related to previous flu exposure, according to a new theory from a research team.

(CIDRAP News) – In the film "Contagion," opening in theaters today, a respiratory virus from Malaysia makes its way from bats to humans, spreading quickly around the world and killing a high proportion of those infected. It's clearly an extreme scenario, but not an impossible one, say experts who have seen the movie.

(CIDRAP News) – A team of European researchers reported yesterday the discovery of a human monoclonal antibody that binds to all types of influenza A viruses, raising the prospect of a new flu treatment and improving the chances of developing a broadly protective or "universal" flu vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – A team of US researchers recently added to the evidence that humans can and do produce antibodies that target a wide range of influenza strains, though how the findings can be exploited in the quest for a "universal" flu vaccine remains to be seen.

(CIDRAP News) – Although antiviral drugs were used to treat many seriously sick people during the H1N1 influenza pandemic, experts at a conference today said they could have been used more widely and that some opportunities to learn from their use were missed.