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(CIDRAP News) A letter and commentary published this week in Emerging Infectious Diseases explore the idea that "original antigenic sin"the hypothesis that the first influenza A virus a person encounters in childhood strongly influences his or her immune responses to all related flu viruses encountered latermay explain the partial protection that older people have against the pandemic H1N1 flu virus.
May 28, 2010
May 27, 2010
(CIDRAP News) Reports from 17 states show that one major type of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) dropped 18% in the first half of 2009, suggesting that the healthcare system is making progress in the battle against infections in hospitals, national health officials announced today.
(CIDRAP News) The United States is a more important hub for the global circulation of seasonal flu strains than previously thought, a finding that may have practical public health implications for the best use of antivirals and vaccines, researchers reported today.
May 26, 2010
(CIDRAP News) Legal issues that came into play during the H1N1 flu pandemic provided a useful look at how laws can help ease the availability of the vaccine, but in some instances can work against immunization efforts, according to a legal expert who has analyzed events that unfolded over the past year.
(CIDRAP News) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has progressed with strengthening known weaknesses in food safety research, but significant gaps are hampering the agency's oversight of food labels, fresh produce, and dietary supplements, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
May 25, 2010
(CIDRAP News) Delegates at the World Health Organization's (WHO's) World Health Assembly (WHA) wrapped up their 5-day meeting on May 21, taking aim at diseases such as childhood pneumonia and measles and addressing difficult issues involving equitable access to vaccines and medicines.
May 24, 2010
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), using its recently released tool for calculating the cost of foodborne illnesses, estimated that Salmonella and Escherichia coli O157:H7 cases cost the nation about $3.13 billion a year.
(CIDRAP News) In the wake of a pandemic vaccine that came too little and too late to blunt the second wave of pandemic flu infections last fall, President Barack Obama's science advisory group today presented a set of recommendations on how to more quickly produce a vaccine in the face of another novel flu outbreak or other public health emergency.
May 21, 2010
(CIDRAP News) Twenty-three people in 10 states have had Salmonella infections in an outbreak linked to alfalfa sprouts produced by a California company, Oregon public health officials announced today.
(CIDRAP News) Global production of the H1N1 influenza vaccine has made clear that the world still has a long way to go to meet pandemic production capacity goals set by the World Health Organization (WHO) 4 years ago, WHO experts said in a report released this week.
(CIDRAP News) Signaling a second front in the US fight against dengue infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said evidence of the virus has been found recently in 28 people who live in or visited Key West, Fla., prompting intensive mosquito control efforts and alerts to doctors.
May 20, 2010