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) – Influenza activity continued its early-season upward trend in the United States last week, while the flu season showed some signs of getting under way in Europe. In addition, US investigators found another case of swine-origin H3N2 flu, this one in a Minnesotan who has recovered.

(CIDRAP News) – Flu activity in the United States rose substantially last week, hitting the national baseline at the earliest point in the season since the 2003-04 flu season, and the first case of variant H3N2 (H3N2v) since September has been reported from Iowa, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that influenza vaccines for the Southern Hemisphere's 2013 flu season should contain the same three strains as the vaccines now being administered to millions in the Northern Hemisphere.

(CIDRAP News) – An investigation of one of the first swine-origin H3N2 influenza cases detected in the United States in 2011 suggests that for each confirmed case, there may be many more that go undetected.

(CIDRAP News) – The number of swine-origin H3N2 (variant H3N2, or H3N2v) influenza cases in the United States has climbed by 9 in the past week, to 305, and another rare swine-origin variant, H1N1v, has cropped up in Missouri, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – A Korean-US research team has identified an H1N2 strain of swine influenza capable of killing ferrets and spreading among them by respiratory droplets, underlining the continuing threat of swine flu to humans amid a wave of swine-origin flu cases in Americans exposed to pigs at agricultural fairs.