News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Almost two thirds of US adults intend to get vaccinated against influenza this season, and 70% of parents plan to have their children vaccinated, according to survey data presented by health officials in Washington, DC, yesterday.

As the world recovers its bearings after spikes in pandemic flu activity and anticipates how the upcoming flu season will unfold, antiviral and vaccine experts in Atlanta today plotted out the new prevention and treatment tools public health officials may someday use to fine-tune their disease responses.

(CIDRAP News) – State health departments will decide which providers will administer the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine this fall, and a single company will be the distributor for all the doses, it was announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – A report from the AARP Public Policy Institute says elderly African-Americans and Hispanics lag well behind elderly whites in influenza vaccination rates, even though the federal Medicare program fully covers the shots.

(CIDRAP News) – It was secondary bacterial pneumonia—not the influenza virus by itself—that killed most of the millions who perished in the 1918 flu pandemic, which suggests that current pandemic preparations should include stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, influenza researchers reported this week.