(CIDRAP News) In a bird's eye view of pandemic H1N1 seroprevalence studies published so far, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today the reports consistently show older people had partial protection and that infection rates were higher in younger people, but it's too soon to estimate a global attack rate.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) replied at greater length today to recent criticism of the way it used science advisors in pandemic planning, defending its response to the H1N1 flu pandemic but allowing that its policies concerning transparency and relations with the pharmaceutical industry need strengthening.
(CIDRAP News) When the H1N1 pandemic influenza began hitting Singapore's military forces last summer, health officials largely arrested its spread by giving oseltamivir to everyone in the affected units, in combination with other preventive steps, according to a report released today.
(CIDRAP News) The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), responding today to recent criticism of WHO policies regarding conflicts of interest and transparency, said the agency needs to tighten its rules for relations with industry but insisted that commercial interests never influenced her decisions regarding the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) An article published by the British Medical Journal says three scientists who helped frame World Health Organization (WHO) guidance on pandemic influenza preparedness had consulted for pharmaceutical companies that stood to profit from the WHO guidance and that the WHO did not disclose the scientists' industry ties.
(CIDRAP News) Based on an assessment of outside experts, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it is sticking with its current pandemic alert level, based on recurring but low-level activity in some parts of the globe and until it has more information on the Southern Hemisphere's flu season.
(CIDRAP News) The risk for the paralytic condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in people who received pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine was about the same as the risk among those who receive seasonal flu shots, according to preliminary findings released today by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(CIDRAP News) A letter and commentary published this week in Emerging Infectious Diseases explore the idea that "original antigenic sin"the hypothesis that the first influenza A virus a person encounters in childhood strongly influences his or her immune responses to all related flu viruses encountered latermay explain the partial protection that older people have against the pandemic H1N1 flu virus.
(CIDRAP News) Legal issues that came into play during the H1N1 flu pandemic provided a useful look at how laws can help ease the availability of the vaccine, but in some instances can work against immunization efforts, according to a legal expert who has analyzed events that unfolded over the past year.
(CIDRAP News) In the wake of a pandemic vaccine that came too little and too late to blunt the second wave of pandemic flu infections last fall, President Barack Obama's science advisory group today presented a set of recommendations on how to more quickly produce a vaccine in the face of another novel flu outbreak or other public health emergency.
