A survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that workers in real estate, food services, and social services had higher rates of influenza-like illness (ILI) than other occupational groups during the 2009-10 flu season, when the pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) virus was circulating widely.
Libya's agriculture ministry today reported the country's first highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, according to a report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The Caribbean now has 10,476 confirmed, probable, or suspected cases of chikungunya, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said late last week, up from 6,540 the week before.
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.
Health officials in China's Jiangxi province today reported their third recent human case of H10N8 avian flu, which proved fatal, according to a provincial statement in Chinese translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
The patient, a 75-year-old man from the capital city of Nanchang, got sick on Feb 4 and was hospitalized with severe pneumonia. He died on Feb 8.
A 7-year-old Cambodian boy and his 3-year-old sister died from H5N1 avian flu late last week, a health official said today, but only the boy was tested, according to Xinhua, China's state news agency.
Most of a group of French pilgrims who traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj last fall had respiratory symptoms during their journey, and some had influenza, but none tested positive for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to a report in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Vietnam and China have each confirmed a case of H5N1 avian flu in recent days, with Vietnam's case proving fatal.
In Vietnam, a 60-year-old woman in Dong Thap province in the Mekong Delta died of the deadly virus on Jan 27, Than Nien News reported yesterday. The woman developed a fever and other symptoms on Jan 22, authorities said. She was hospitalized on Jan 23 in neighboring An Gian province on Jan 23, where she died.
For a second straight week, most key indicators are down, and some have dropped 3 weeks in a row.
In a study designed to shed light on a phenomenon seen in Canada of increased risk of pandemic 2009 H1N1 flu in those who received a flu vaccine the year before, ferrets given a seasonal flu shot had worse H1N1 disease than those who had not received the vaccine.
