(CIDRAP News) The creators of the fictional ABC-TV movie "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" blended medical facts from the 1918 influenza pandemic with current predictions from flu experts to portray a contemporary flu pandemic, but they added a liberal dash of sensationalism.
(CIDRAP News) In an effort to modernize vaccine production while preparing for an influenza pandemic, the US government today awarded five contracts totaling more than $1 billion to develop cell-based technologies for making flu vaccines.
(CIDRAP News) – The White House today released a lengthy new plan describing how the government intends to cope with an influenza pandemic, but officials continued to stress their standard message that states and communities will have to rely mainly on themselves in that situation, with the federal government in an advisory role.
(CIDRAP News) – There is no practical way to clean disposable medical masks and N95 respirators to allow them to safely be reused if supplies run short in an influenza pandemic, a panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has concluded.
(CIDRAP News) European countries' plans for coping with an influenza pandemic are generally good but have a number of gaps, including a lack of detail on distribution of drugs and supplies, according to an analysis published last week by The Lancet.
(CIDRAP News) Close to half of local public health workers who responded to a survey in three Maryland counties last year said they probably would not come to work during an influenza pandemic, according to a study published today.
(CIDRAP News) – A mathematical modeling study suggests that a modestly effective vaccine could keep an influenza pandemic from striking more than 10% of the US population, but only if large amounts of vaccine were distributed quickly and the virus was not too highly contagious.
(CIDRAP News) Recognizing that an influenza pandemic may disproportionately affect refugees and internally displaced people, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines for humanitarian organizations working with such populations.
(CIDRAP News) The first experimental US vaccine for H5N1 avian influenza yielded only modest results in its first clinical trial, generating an adequate immune response in slightly more than half of participants who received a heavy dose, scientists report.
(CIDRAP News) A new study suggests that the reason the H5N1 avian influenza virus infects humans relatively rarely and does not spread from person to person is that it lacks the right key to unlock many cells in the upper respiratory tract.
