News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The world registered fewer human infections with H5N1 avian influenza in 2012, but the fatality rate was a little higher than in previous years, the World Health Organization (WHO) noted in a recent review of the year's data.

(CIDRAP News) – Testing of a sampling of pigs shown at the Minnesota State Fair during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic revealed that 19% of them were infected with flu viruses, even though they looked healthy, according to a new study.

(CIDRAP News) – A serologic study from Canada suggests that children and middle-aged adults have little or no immunity to the swine-origin variant H3N2 influenza virus (H3N2v), but about half of adolescents and young adults have some degree of immunity as measured by antibody levels.

(CIDRAP News) – US flu activity is still hanging on, though some indicators show signs of declining, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Canadian researchers have reported a study in which both young children and middle-aged adults had little evidence of immune protection against swine-origin influenza H3N2 viruses like those that have been reported recently in a dozen US children.