The WHO recommends keeping the same strains for the Northern Hemisphere's 2014-15 flu season.
Data from seven European countries suggests that last season's influenza vaccine yielded about 42% to 50% protection, depending on the flu type, according to a recent report in Eurosurveillance.
Spanish researchers estimate this season's flu vaccine is only 24% effective so far, much lower than a Canadian estimate last week.
Individuals in the San Francisco Bay area are being told to stay alert for symptoms of measles after an infected and contagious student at the University of California, Berkeley, attended classes and used public transportation before his diagnosis last week, according to news sources.
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.
Researchers estimate that this year's flu vaccine may reduce the risk of H1N1 infection by more than 70%.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released updated guidelines for treating and preventing anthrax in adults and pregnant women, recommending, among other things, the simultaneous use of antimicrobial drugs and antitoxin in patients who have systemic disease.
A 52-year-old man in the southern province of Binh Phuoc has died of H5N1 avian flu, the first case in Vietnam in 9 months, Than Nien News reported today.
A Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak at a Tennessee prison has grown to nine cases, and investigators are probing 19 infections caused by the same strain in 12 other states to see if they are linked to the outbreak, which has been tied to chicken products from Tyson Foods.
With the flu season hitting its stride and the 2009 H1N1 virus spreading, the public health advocacy group Trust for America's Health today called for greater efforts to increase flu vaccine coverage, saying only 35.7% of working-age adults were vaccinated last season.
