Pandemic Influenza

(CIDRAP News) – Sanofi Pasteur today announced the start of the first clinical trial of an H7N1 influenza vaccine, intended to guard against the threat of a pandemic caused by H7 strains of avian influenza.

Current concern about a flu pandemic focuses mainly on the H5N1 avian flu virus, which has infected at least 247 people and killed 144. But H7 avian flu viruses have caused a number of mild illness cases and one death in the past 3 years.

(CIDRAP News) – Live-virus vaccines made from a combination of H5N1 avian influenza virus and another flu strain protected laboratory mice and ferrets from deadly infection with several different H5N1 strains, according to a report published yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent report about the use of blood products to treat patients in the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 has sparked interest among those concerned about the threat of the next pandemic, but experts say it's far from clear whether the approach would be practicable in a pandemic today.

(CIDRAP News) – Now that most states have issued preliminary or final plans for dealing with pandemic influenza, a group of experts who looked at the public health strategies in the plans has given them a mixed review.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today changed the H5N1 avian influenza strains recommended for candidate vaccines for the first time since 2004, causing some experts to question how far the virus has evolved.

The WHO's new prototype strains, prepared by reverse genetics, include three new H5N1 subclades.

(CIDRAP News) – Two national groups of infectious disease experts urged the White House to make the development of vaccines the most important element in the nation's pandemic influenza plan.

(CIDRAP News) – In an experiment designed to mimic events that could launch an influenza pandemic, a synthetic influenza virus made by combining an H5N1 avian flu virus with a human flu virus turned out to be no more contagious in an animal model than the natural H5N1 virus, US scientists are reporting this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Pharmaceutical maker Roche has drawn sharp criticism for promoting the sale of its antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to businesses while governments stockpiling the drug for defense against a possible flu pandemic wait to receive their own supplies, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday announced a contract with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that will allow states to add the influenza drug zanamivir (Relenza) to their federally subsidized antiviral stockpiles.

(CIDRAP News) – The role of state officials in an influenza pandemic has been hazy, but the focus became clearer yesterday when the National Governors Association (NGA) released a guide that spells out key planning issues for top state officials.