Flu activity is still high in the Northern Hemisphere's temperate-zone countries, with a few countries now reporting hospitalization and intensive care unit admission levels that top previous seasons, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday in its latest global flu update. Adults ages 65 and older are the hardest hit groups in both Canada and the United States.
Today the French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur, said they would not pay the Philippines millions of dollars in return for Dengvaxia vaccines, after the country halted a national vaccination program in light of concerns the vaccine can cause severe infection in dengue-immune recipients.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has received early reports of two new wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases, both in Kandahar province, GPEI said in its weekly update today.
Routine testing as part of avian influenza surveillance in wild birds found low levels of H7 RNA in two mallards shot in December by hunters in Georgia's McIntosh Country.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) reported five new cases of MERS-CoV in updated reports released over the weekend.
In a regular overview of recent MERS-CoV activity in Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today that between Dec 9, 2017, and Jan 17 the country reported 20 more cases, 8 of them fatal. Also, it reported a death in a patient covered in one of the WHO's earlier updates.
DEFRA says the risk of avian flu spreading to other UK wild birds is high.
Reminding people when it's time to receive immunizations—through postcards, texts, and automated phone calls—can increase vaccination numbers, a team of Cochrane researchers reported today, based on an extensive review of 75 studies from 10 countries. Their findings appear in the Cochrane Library.
Preliminary indications into South Sudan's recent viral hemorrhagic fever outbreak suggest that Rift Valley fever (RVF) may be the cause, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa said in its latest outbreak and health emergencies update.
China has reported its second human H7N9 avian influenza infection of the season, in a 72-year-old man from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region who died from his illness, Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement today, based on information from the mainland.
