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) – 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.

(CIDRAP News) – Flu activity is increasing in many of the Northern Hemisphere's temperate-zone countries, with influenza B cocirculating with the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus across Europe and teaming up with influenza A (H3N2) in the United States and Canada, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest update.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health officials in Canada yesterday announced that they have detected a new influenza strain—one that contains human seasonal flu and a swine flu virus—in two workers on a Saskatchewan hog farm.

The workers had mild illness and have recovered, and authorities are investigating a third suspected case, the Public Health Agency of Canada said in statement yesterday.

Jun 3, 2009

The World Health Organization (WHO) listed a global total of 2,500 confirmed cases of swine influenza H1N1 in 25 countries today. That total included 1,204 cases in Mexico, 896 cases in the United States (yesterday's number), 214 in Canada, 88 in Spain, and 34 in the United Kingdom. The death toll remains at 44, including 42 in Mexico and 2 in the United States. [WHO update 22]