The results of a World Health Organization (WHO) working group investigation into pregnancy and influenza research from 2014 to 2017 showed mixed results when it came to the extent that maternal vaccine protected pregnant women and infants up the age of 6 months from influenza.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirmed a new case of variant H1N2 flu (H1N2v) in a child in Ohio, the second US case this year caused by that strain, and the 20th variant flu case of the year.
South Africa and Italy report more H5N8 outbreaks, and Taiwan confirms new H5N2 events.
Today the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new MERS-CoV cases in Dumah Al Jandal. At this time, it's not known if the new cases are related to a hospital outbreak in that city first reported at the beginning of August.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today said a Salmonella outbreak linked to pet turtles has sickened 37 people in 13 states, about one third of them children younger than 5 years.
China reported two H7N9 avian flu infections this week, both of them involving men in Xinjiang autonomous region in the far northwest of the country, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said today in an update.
The country's first poultry outbreak has been confirmed to be caused by H5N6.
In a study designed to help clinicians and health policy makers decide whether to recommend and offer annual flu vaccination, a new meta-analysis published today found no evidence that prior season immunization blunts the protection of the current seasonal vaccine.
Researchers from Ontario and Hong Kong published their meta-analysis of observational studies today in BMC Medicine.
Saudi Arabia today announced a MERS-CoV infection in a patient in Jeddah whose exposure to the virus is still under review. The case is the fourth recent one reported from Jeddah.
The latest case involves a 51-year-old male expatriate whose is hospitalized in critical condition. He is not a healthcare worker, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH).
A detailed look at variant influenza cases from seven agricultural fairs in Michigan and Ohio in 2016 found that of 18 variant H3N2 (H3N2v) cases in humans, 16 were infected with a reassortant that contains the hemagglutinin gene from the 2010-2011 seasonal H3N2 strain in humans, a strain increasingly seen in US swine herds.
