Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) reported a new MERS case today, the first case since Jul 11.
For the third week in a row, China reported just one H7N9 avian influenza case, a sign that the fifth and biggest wave of infections may be drawing to a close.
A study yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases that measured the time between symptom onset and diagnosis in 537 patients with MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia found that patients were diagnosed 0 to 36 days after symptoms appeared, with a median of 4 days.
The World Health Organization (WHO) may reverse a decision it made a month ago to launch a cholera vaccine campaign in Yemen, due to the aggressive spread of the disease and conflict conditions in the country, the New York Times reported today, citing a WHO spokesman who updated reporters at a briefing in Geneva today.
A study in children tested for flu over three seasons at a New Orleans hospital found modest but consistent flu vaccine effectiveness, that a switch from the inactivated trivalent to quadrivalent (four-strain) formulation didn't seem to help or hurt effectiveness, and that the inhaled version of the vaccine didn't perform as well, but improved over successive seasons.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that the 2016-17 flu season was dominated by influenza A (H3N2), and the flu vaccine was only 34% effective in protecting recipients against that strain and 42% effective against all strains.
The patch produced a strong immune response and was well tolerated in 50 volunteers.
Researchers have found no elevated risk of autism in babies born to woman in Norway infected with influenza during pregnancy, a study yesterday in mSphere reported.
Researchers looking for mutations that might make H7N9 avian influenza more easily transmissible among people identified three amino acid changes that would make the virus more likely to bind to human airway receptors. A team of researchers from the United States, including those from The Scripps Research Institute, and the Netherlands reported its findings today in PLoS Pathogens.
Two countries reported more highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks: H5N8 in Russia and H5N2 in South Korea, according to notifications today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
Russia's outbreak began on May 4 in backyard birds in the Republic of Tatarstan in the west. The virus killed 13 of 51 birds, and authorities culled the remaining ones as part of the response measures.
