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CDC advisory panel defers action on recommending the nasal-spray flu vaccine in children.
China reported two more H7N9 cases, as scientists said targeting H9N2 might prevent other novel avian flu viruses.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today announced that a 56-year-old Saudi woman in Riyadh is sick with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
The woman has chronic diseases and is being treated in an intensive care unit, the MOH said. It gave no other information on her condition or her possible exposures to the virus.
Findings show that MERS-CoV or a closely related virus circulated in Saudi camels as long ago as 1992.
China today reported one H7N9 case, in a 71-year-old man from Guangdong province who is hospitalized in critical condition, according to a provincial health ministry statement translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
The man's illness bumps the overall number of H7N9 infections to 371. The unofficial number of deaths remains at 114.
Officials have identified in cheese products produced by Roos Foods of Kenton, Del., the strain of Listeria monocytogenes responsible for a two-state outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday. The outbreak has sickened seven people in Maryland and killed a person in California, the CDC said.
Five California children suffered a puzzling illness that left them with limited limb function.
As cases continue, researchers find a mutation that might enhance disease severity.
Eight people of Hispanic ethnicity in Maryland and California have contracted listeriosis, possibly from soft cheese, and one has died, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Feb 21.
Seven outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu among village flocks in seven separate provinces in northern and southern Vietnam have led to almost 20,000 new poultry deaths, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reported on Feb 22.
Three new cases, one of them fatal, are from Guangdong and Jilin provinces.
US flu activity continues a slow decline, similar to Canada, while Europe shows mixed activity.
Martinique and neighboring Caribbean islands have seen a major surge of suspected chikungunya cases this week, and two locally acquired cases in French Guiana mark the first indigenous cases in South America, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported today.
After about 300 chickens on a farm in Nepal died mysteriously, H5N1 avian flu was confirmed and 1,552 chickens on that and a neighboring farm as well as 30 crates of eggs were destroyed yesterday by a rapid response team, according to a story in Republica, a Nepalese newspaper.
The CDC says this year's vaccine yields 61% protection and that working-age adults have been hit hard by the flu.
The WHO today put the H7N9 death toll at 112, considerably higher than previously noted.
The WHO recommends keeping the same strains for the Northern Hemisphere's 2014-15 flu season.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported two new cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, one of which was fatal.
The first patient is a 58-year-old male citizen of Al-Ahsa, who has "various chronic diseases." He is receiving medical treatment, but the MOH didn't provide any details on his condition or whether he had contact with any animals or infected people.
Genes of 32 MERS-CoV viruses from Saudi cases showed little evidence of increased adaptation to humans.
As human H7N9 cases slow, the FAO says the risk of human-to-bird transmission is low.
