News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Saying dengue virus infections and deaths have mushroomed in recent years, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a strategy report that sets a goal of cutting deaths in half and reducing cases by 25% over the next 8 years.

– WASHINGTON, DC (CIDRAP News) – Health authorities must remain alert to new and renascent disease threats, experts warned this week at an international medical meeting.

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

Editor's note: This is the bibliography to a seven-part series launched October 25, 2007, investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian health officials said this week they will continue withholding samples of the H5N1 avian influenza virus at least until a new virus-sharing mechanism is worked out at an international meeting in November.

The statements came in response to criticism earlier this week from a World Health Organization (WHO) official, who said Indonesia was endangering global health by withholding the viruses.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization official said yesterday that Indonesia is endangering the world's health by continuing to withhold H5N1 influenza virus samples collected from human patients.

(CIDRAP News) – Representatives from 24 countries are meeting in Singapore this week to propose solutions to virus-sharing problems that threaten to derail global monitoring of the H5N1 avian influenza virus and stall the development of new vaccines and treatments.

(CIDRAP News) – A recently published survey of Europeans and Asians showed that, when faced with an influenza pandemic, most would avoid mass transit and limit shopping to essentials, and many would avoid other public places, including restaurants, theaters, and the workplace.

(CIDRAP News) – The executive board of the World Health Organization (WHO) today nominated Dr. Margaret Chan, the agency's top pandemic influenza official and a veteran of the world's first confrontation with the H5N1 flu virus in 1997, to be the agency's next director-general.