News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Test results on a cluster of Alabama patients hospitalized with similar respiratory symptoms indicated no unusual pathogens but instead a variety of common respiratory viruses and bacteria, state health officials announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Alabama health officials are investigating a cluster of severe respiratory infections from an unknown origin centered around the Dothan area and have asked the state's health providers to be alert for and report similar cases.

(CIDRAP News) – Influenza C generally isn't thought to be a cause clinically significant disease, but a study in Italian children who were seen in the emergency department for pneumonia found the virus in five children, with a disease severity that resembled influenza A.

(CIDRAP News) – Maryland health officials today confirmed that at least 2 of 4 members of a Calvert County family who had severe influenza were co-infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

(CIDRAP News) – Another family member linked to a fatal flu cluster in Calvert County, Md., has been hospitalized, as suspicion grew that an aggressive drug-resistant form of pneumonia may have played a role in the severe illnesses, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – An autopsy study involving influenza B infections revealed how histologically similar the disease is to fatal influenza A and how quickly it can kill, challenging the notion that it is milder than influenza A.

The investigators, from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also found a high level of cardiac injury with fatal influenza B infections, especially in younger patients.

(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.