US researchers reported yesterday that giving mice a flu vaccine and simultaneously treating them with rapamycin, an immune-suppressing drug, caused them to generate antibodies that were protective against other flu strains, including H5N1 and H7N9.
A 61-year-old man in Qatar is being treated for a Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, according to a Qatar News Agency report today. The report marks the country's sixth case.
Qatar's Supreme Council of Health said the man, who has chronic illnesses, is being treated and is in stable condition, according to the story.
Vietnam's agriculture ministry yesterday reported an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in ducks in chickens at village in Hoa Binh province, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The virus killed 370 of 1,175 susceptible birds, and the remaining 805 birds were destroyed to control the spread of the virus.
The lack of national flu data is starting to cause worry, especially over novel or resistant strains.
Foster Farms has taken adequate contamination-control steps at three of its California plants linked to a multistate Salmonella outbreak to have the plants remain operational, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said, according to an NBC News report yesterday.
Neither the seasonal trivalent (three-strain) influenza vaccine (TIV) nor a monovalent H3N2 vaccine substantially reduced shedding of variant H3N2 (H3N2v) virus in ferrets, but previous infection with a seasonal H3N2 virus did, according to a study yesterday in the Journal of Virology.
New federal contracts establish a "fill and finish" network for flu vaccine to boost capacity by 20%.
The CDC's final estimates for 2012-13 show a healthy bump in kids and a small gain in adults.
Note: This story was corrected on Sep 27. It originally incorrectly stated that the H3N2 strain was changed from the one used in the 2013-14 Northern Hemisphere vaccine. We apologize for the error.
The effectiveness of the influenza vaccine dropped from 52% at 3.5 months after vaccination to 22% more than 4 months after vaccination during the 2011-12 season, according to a study out of Spain today in BMC Infectious Diseases whose power was limited by a small sample size.
