Another H7N9 case has been detected in China, the ninth such infection to be reported in Guangdong province, where several of the country’s recent infections have been found.
Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement that the patient is a 31-year-old man who lives in Shenzhen. He started having symptoms on Dec 30 and was hospitalized on Jan 3, where he is in stable condition.
Vaccinated pregnant women had a lower risk of preterm or low-birth-weight babies.
The severity of H7N9 influenza infection is linked to high cytokine levels, and some patients appear to have a genetic marker that correlates with more serious outcomes, according to a research team from China and Australia. The group reported their findings in the Dec 23 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that the H10N8 avian flu death in a woman from Jiangxi province, China, reported 2 days ago by Chinese officials is indeed the first human case involving that strain, and it provided some new details.
Results show about 55% protection in children 3 to 8 years old.
Three major infectious-disease societies said this week that healthcare personnel (HCP) should be required to receive all six vaccines that are recommended for them by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Flu vaccine uptake is up a bit, and the vaccine prevented 6.6 million cases last season, the CDC said.
The biggest push to vaccinate children in seven Middle Eastern countries against polio starts this week, with a goal of reaching 23 million kids in Syria and neighboring nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today. The campaign aims to reach all children under age 5 over the next few months, whether they live at home or in displaced populations.
Saudi Arabia's health ministry today announced two more Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections, one of which appears to be in a health worker with an asymptomatic infection who had contact with a confirmed case, according to a machine-translation of a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.
Flu vaccination coverage among US patients with asthma was almost 50% in the 2010-11 season, fully 12 percentage points higher than among those without asthma, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
