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Chinese officials have reported another H7N9 avian flu illness, in Zhejiang province, and Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) today noted 49 cases that have occurred in recent weeks, but it's difficult to determine if any of them are new.
The median duration of colonization with community-based methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in ambulatory patients is 21 days, shorter than the previously thought duration of 6 to 9 months, and treatment with clindamycin is associated with more rapid clearance of the infection, say findings of a study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Highlights include funds for antibiotic resistance, bioterrorism preparedness, and a unified food safety agency.
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) taken within 24 hours of flu symptom onset shortened the duration of all symptoms by 56%, but had no effect on household flu transmission or viral shedding, according to a study yesterday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today published a summary of the recent US outbreaks of avian flu in birds in western states, and late last week it published two guidance documents in response to those detections.
A clinical trial of 2 Ebola vaccine candidates was launched today near Liberia's capital, but falling case numbers may pose problems.
Avian flu caused by various strains was confirmed in the US, UK, Israel, Japan, Bulgaria, and South Korea.
California officials today said they have confirmed 92 measles cases since December, 59 of which are linked to visiting Disneyland, bringing the US total to more than 100 cases, while Toronto has confirmed 4 cases not linked to each other or to travel outside the country.
Analysis finds a significant reduction in symptom duration, risk of hospitalization, and likelihood of complications.
UNMEER head calls the situation "perilous," because the disease is still present in 25 of 66 districts in the three outbreak nations.
Two men have been stricken with MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, bringing the total case count since June 2012 to 845, according to an update today from the country's ministry of health (MOH).
Influenza seems reluctant to release its grip on the United States, as most measures of flu activity showed little change last week, according to today's update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
January's new cases alone top the total from some entire years, as outbreak spreads to 14 states.
Hundreds of thousands of poultry affected in more than 100 outbreaks involving various subtypes.
The study supports but doesn't prove a link between polio-like symptoms and EV-D68 in kids.
This flu season's vaccine has provided "little or no protection" against influenza in Canada because of a mismatch between the H3N2 strain included in the vaccine and the predominant circulating H3N2 strain, say interim findings from the Canadian Sentinel Physician Surveillance Network (SPSN) published in today's issue of Eurosurveillance.
Response efforts are shifting into their next phase: building capacity to detect every case.
The Northern Hemisphere continues to see high levels of influenza A (H3N2), especially in North America and northwestern Europe, according to a Jan 26 World Health Organization (WHO) report.
The world is "dangerously unpreprepared" for future pandemics, and a private-public sector proposal that includes a pandemic facility and insurance coverage could help countries across the globe mitigate the risk, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said today in a speech at Georgetown University.
Also, US officials report more details on the H5N8 outbreak on a California turkey farm.
