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(CIDRAP News) – A top influenza expert with the World Health Organization today sought to allay fears that the upcoming flu season in the northern hemisphere will be unusually severe.

(CIDRAP News) – In the influenza pandemic of 1918, those who got sick in the first wave of illness were up to 94% less likely to fall ill when the second and much more severe wave struck, according to a new analysis of historical data.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday approved a new diagnostic test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that can quickly distinguish seasonal influenza strains from an evolving virus that might have pandemic potential in hours rather than days.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced that it awarded 17 food and feed safety grants totaling $5.2 million to state and local regulatory agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – Four organizations that represent many of the nation's public health officials issued a report yesterday detailing how 6 years of federal funding has improved preparedness, though serious challenges remain, such as hiring and training lab workers and local preparedness planners.

(CIDRAP News) – Some public health officials have feared that one of the many miseries of rising home foreclosure—and the neglected water sources that follow—could be rising rates of human West Nile virus infections, and now California researchers who studied surveillance data for the Bakersfield area have confirmed the connection.

(CIDRAP News) – Emergent BioSolutions announced today that it has received a $29.7 million contract from the federal government to continue work on another of its next-generation anthrax vaccine candidates.

(CIDRAP News) – Surveys indicate that recommendations to immunize small children against influenza have been slow to catch on, while flu immunization for adults was somewhat slow to recover from a setback caused by a vaccine shortage 4 years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today hosted a live webcast to teach laypeople and community groups how to prepare their homes and families for a pandemic, and they fielded a range of questions, from the size of food stockpiles to elbow bumps versus high fives in sports settings.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday announced the awarding of $24 million to fund state and local projects aimed at innovative approaches to boost the nation's readiness for an influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health and medical leaders predicted today that this year's influenza vaccine will match up well with circulating flu viruses—unlike last year's vaccine—and that plenty of doses will be available.

(CIDRAP News) – An agriculture ministry official in Indonesia who spoke yesterday at a pandemic planning conference for businesses said the number of poultry outbreaks caused by the H5N1 avian influenza virus is declining.

(CIDRAP News) – Two organizations recently reported winning US government contracts for research on drugs that could work against multiple bioterror-related diseases such as plague, tularemia, and anthrax.

Editor's note: The second paragraph of this story was revised on Sep 24 to correct an error. On the basis of information from ProMED-mail (published by the International Society for Infectious Diseases), the original version said it was unusual for the southern hemisphere vaccine composition to be the same as the preceding northern hemisphere vaccine. A later ProMED-mail posting made clear that this is not unusual.

(CIDRAP News) – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggests in a new report that an increased focus on the development of vaccine adjuvants could save the US government money while improving the nation's preparedness for an influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a target of the 2001 anthrax attacks, said this week that he disbelieves the FBI's conclusion that Dr. Bruce E. Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the attacks, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released a report detailing the first year of its public health "do not board" (DNB) list, a new tool designed to prohibit those with serious communicable diseases from flying into or out of the country.

Data from the first year of the program, from June 2008 to May 2008, appear today in the Sep 19 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

(CIDRAP News) – A study conducted in Bangladesh suggests that an influenza shot during pregnancy lowers the risk of influenza both for the woman and for the baby in the first 6 months of life.

Agriculture officials in Togo today confirmed that the H5N1 avian influenza virus was responsible for suspicious poultry deaths that had recently been reported in a village in the southern part of the country.

(CIDRAP News) – Nine research  teams that  shared $2 million from Fresh Express, a California produce company, recently presented their findings on Escherichia coli O157:H7, revealing some clues on the pathogen's behavior on leafy greens that could lead to safer produce.