The 10-year plan starts today and gives recommendations for a range of scientific disciplines to better address seasonal flu and prepare for the next flu pandemic.
Though US COVID-19 cases have dropped sharply, progress is uneven, with some regions vulnerable to further surges.
More than two thirds of antibiotics prescribed for respiratory tract infections at primary care practices within an academic health system were inappropriate, with unnecessary prescribing strongly linked to respiratory infections that almost never require antibiotics, researchers reported today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a new MERS-CoV case, which involves a 36-year-old man who died from his infection.
The man was from Hafr Al-Batin in the country's northeast. An investigation found that the man had been exposed to camels. He wasn't a healthcare worker and isn't thought to have contracted MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) from another person.
Hospitals were under serious strain during the 2017-18 flu season, yet no pandemic planning resulted.
Use of antibiotic order sets built into the electronic medical record for common infectious diagnoses in the emergency department (ED) was associated with improved antibiotic prescribing at an academic medical center, Emory University researchers reported yesterday in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
During recent meetings to recommend the flu strains to include in the Southern Hemisphere's 2021 flu season, the World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group also reviewed the latest developments with zoonotic strains and recommended two new candidate vaccine viruses for pandemic preparedness.
A new study in Transboundary and Emerging Disease calculated the case-fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 infections in 53 countries or regions that experienced a second wave—or resurgence—of coronavirus activity, and found a significantly lower death rate among all confirmed cases than in the first wave.
This is the first study to compare the CFR in the first and second waves of the pandemic.
More than 10% of swine workers tested had antibodies to the novel influenza strain.
An influenza research network established by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2007 to help answer key questions during outbreaks now has a response plan to help it prepare for new challenges. A team led by the Centers for Infectious Disease Research and Development (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News, detailed the plan yesterday in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses.
