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(CIDRAP News) – Preliminary studies suggest that this year's trivalent seasonal flu vaccine used in Europe was less effective against the 2009 H1N1 virus than last year's monovalent H1N1 vaccine was, possibly because of some degree of mutation in the virus, according to recent reports in Eurosurveillance.

(CIDRAP News) – For the second week in a row, most indicators of flu activity declined, except for deaths in children and overall deaths related to pneumonia and flu, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its most recent update.

Mar 21, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – US researchers are predicting on the basis of mathematical modeling that Haiti could have close to 800,000 cholera cases and 11,100 deaths this year, more than three times the 250,000 cases counted since the epidemic began last fall.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said yesterday its revised standard for Salmonella and its first-time standard for Campylobacter in raw poultry at processing plants will take effect in July, giving processors more incentive to keep the contaminants out of their products.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday reported on a cluster of four cases of vaccinia virus infection in 2008 that were linked to a martial arts gym in Maryland.

The investigation included lab and public health officials from Michigan and Maryland and was detailed in the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) journal.

Mar 17, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese researchers who have been investigating puzzling outbreaks of a febrile illness in rural areas that they thought might be anaplasmosis reported today that they identified a new bunyavirus, one that may be transmitted by ticks.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Bangladesh have confirmed another H5N1 avian influenza infection, the second one in a week, bdnews24.com, a news service based in Dhaka, reported today.

Editor's note: This story was revised Mar 17 to include additional information about the number of claims filed and processing steps.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has so far received 386 claims of injuries related to the 2009 pandemic H1N1 vaccine and related pandemic countermeasures, HHS officials reported today.

Mar 15, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – Two people died of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia in the past few weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today, while news reports from Bangladesh cited that country's first human H5N1 case this year.

The Indonesian victims were a 2-year-old boy and a 31-year-old woman, who both had exposure to poultry, the WHO said, citing the Indonesian Ministry of Health as its information source.

Mar 14, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers from the University of Michigan say one measure of flu vaccine efficacy that has been used in a number of past controlled trials is not very accurate, and that this may have led to a degree of overselling of the protection the vaccines provide.

(CIDRAP News) – After several weeks of rising or strong flu activity, levels dropped last week, with most indicators showing declines, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A trio of vaccine researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) says influenza A/H2N2 viruses, the subtype that caused the flu pandemic of 1957-58, could return and trigger a pandemic in much the same way the H1N1 subtype did in 2009.

Mar 10, 2011