Public Health England (PHE) yesterday released its provisional seasonal flu vaccine effectiveness (VE) estimates for the 2017-18 flu season, which revealed low overall effectiveness and no protection against H3N2, but variable findings in different age-groups.
In its weekly report, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) announced two advance notices of polio cases, one each in Afghanistan and Somalia.
The case in Afghanistan involves wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Nad-e-Ali district, Helmand province. The patient suffered an onset of paralysis on Jun 1. The case raises the total number of WPV1cases in Afghanistan in 2018 to 9.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) health ministry said today that all contacts of the last confirmed case have completed their 21-day monitoring periods with none showing any signs of illness, marking the beginning of the countdown to the end of the nation's ninth Ebola outbreak.
In the latest development in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak, the country's health ministry yesterday reported three new suspected cases in Bikoro, one of the two remote hotspots, according to a daily update.
Russia's agriculture ministry reported 16 more highly pathogenic H5 outbreaks, mostly in backyard poultry, according to a notification today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
Influenza illnesses can trigger asthmatic episodes that don't respond to treatment.
Authorities in a second Indian state are investigating two suspected Nipah virus infections, both of them in people who had traveled to Kerala state where they had contact with infected patients, Reuters reported today, citing a health official in Karnataka state.
The death toll for a Nipah virus outbreak in India's Kerala state now stands at 10, after at least 12 more people have been diagnosed as having the deadly virus, according to a Reuters report today.
Reuters said an additional nine people are being treated for infections with supportive care. Nipah virus is most commonly spread by fruit bats, and presents with severe, flu-like symptoms.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an additional claim for the cobas Zika test, manufactured by Roche Molecular Diagnostics, the company announced today in a news release. The approval allows the test to be used to screen pooled blood and plasma donations for the Zika virus.
According to Roche, the new application will streamline the screening process of multiple individual blood or plasma donations.
The United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) today issued draft guidance for the treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs).
