Scottish researchers report that they found increased levels of cytokines—chemical messengers that typically promote inflammation—in patients with influenza and rhinovirus infections.
The findings appear to support the view that a "cytokine storm" contributes to severe illness in flu patients.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Sanofi Pasteur's Fluzone Quadrivalent (four-strain) injectable flu vaccine, the company announced today.
A study from a Wisconsin team indicates that influenza vaccination does not increase the risk of infection with other respiratory viruses, which supports the validity of a common method for assessing flu vaccine effectiveness (VE) in observational studies.
If the H7N9 influenza virus now circulating in China evolves into a pandemic strain, the world is likely to have great difficulty providing adequate supplies of an effective vaccine in time to blunt its impact, according to a viewpoint article by three experts in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
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(CIDRAP News) – Experts are puzzled by a new study in which influenza vaccination seemed to provide little or no protection against flu in the 2010-11 season—and in which the only participants who seemed to benefit from the vaccine were those who hadn't been vaccinated the season before.
(CIDRAP News) – Influenza vaccine over the past few months has provided moderate protection overall but didn't have a significant impact on protecting seniors, a study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed today.
(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today recommended changing one of the three vaccine strains for the Northern Hemisphere's next flu season, based on the changing profile of circulating influenza B strains.
An expert group that met in Geneva earlier this week suggested changing the B component of the vaccine, but sticking with the A/H3N2 and A/H1N1 components.
