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Infectious Disease: Influenza
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Total 12 results found since Jan 2013.
Why You ’ re More Likely to Get Sick in the Winter, According to New Research
Fall and winter are traditionally boom times for respiratory viruses—a point well proven by this year’s confluence of influenza, RSV, and COVID-19. Almost 9 million people nationwide have been sickened by the flu already this season, RSV is surging among children, and COVID-19 continues to infect tens of thousands of people in the U.S. each day.
But why does cold weather typically translate to cold and flu season? Experts often point to changes in human behavior—namely that chilly temperatures force people inside, where it’s easier for germs to spread. But a new study published in The Journal of All...
Source: TIME: Health - December 6, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized Disease healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
A New Lab-Made COVID-19 Virus Puts Gain-of-Function Research Under the Microscope
On October 14, a team of scientists at Boston University released a pre-print study reporting that they had created a version of SARS-CoV-2 combining two features of different, existing strains that boosted its virulence and transmissibility. Scientists and the public raised questions about the work, which refocused attention on such experiments, and prompted the U.S. government to investigate whether the research followed protocols for these kinds of studies.
The concerns surround what is known as gain-of-function studies, in which viruses, bacteria, or other pathogens are created in the lab—either intentionally or ...
Source: TIME: Science - October 27, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
mRNA Technology Gave Us the First COVID-19 Vaccines. It Could Also Upend the Drug Industry
“No!” The doctor snapped. “Look at me!”
I had been staring her in the eyes, as she had ordered, but when a doctor on my other side began jabbing me with a needle, I started to turn my head. “Don’t look at it,” the first doctor said. I obeyed.
This was in early August in New Orleans, where I had signed up to be a participant in the clinical trial for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It was a blind study, which meant I was not supposed to know whether I had gotten the placebo or the real vaccine. I asked the doctor if I would really been able to tell by looking at the syringe. &...
Source: TIME: Health - January 11, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Walter Isaacson Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 feature Magazine Source Type: news
The COVID-19 Virus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean for Vaccines?
As we enter the second year of living with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus is celebrating its invasion of the world’s population with yet more mutated forms that help it to spread more easily from person to person.
One, first detected in the U.K. in December, has already raised alarms about whether the COVID-19 virus is now escaping from the protection that vaccines just being rolled out now might provide. The variant has also been found in the U.S. Already, U.K. officials have tightened lockdowns in England, Scotland and Wales, and over the holidays, more than 40 countries banned travelers from the region ...
Source: TIME: Health - January 7, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
The Great Vaccine Race: Inside the Unprecedented Scramble to Immunize the World Against COVID-19
The cleverest of enemies thrive on surprise attacks. Viruses—and coronaviruses in particular—know this well. Remaining hidden in animal hosts for decades, they mutate steadily, sometimes serendipitously morphing into more effective and efficient infectious agents. When a strain with just the right combination of genetic codes that spell trouble for people makes the leap from animal to human, the ambush begins.
Such was the case with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind COVID-19, and the attack was mostly silent and insidious at first. Many people infected with SARS-CoV-2 remained oblivious as they served as the v...
Source: TIME: Health - September 10, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Magazine Source Type: news
President Trump Called Hydroxychloroquine a ‘Game Changer,’ But Experts Warn Against Self-Medicating With the Drug. Here’s What You Need to Know
After President Trump, late last week, expressed great confidence in the promise of a new COVID-19 therapy that combines two existing prescription medications, supplies of these two drugs rapidly began disappearing from pharmacy shelves. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed an Indian company previously restricted from importing drug products into the US to now start manufacturing one of the drugs. And U.S. plants began gearing up to produce enough to meet the surge in demand.
But in those few days, a few people who began self medicating with the drugs in an effort to prevent COVID-19 have died, and others have bee...
Source: TIME: Health - March 24, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
Human, Nonhuman Primate, and Bat Cells Are Broadly Susceptible to Tibrovirus Particle Cell Entry
Discussion
Tibroviruses are highly undercharacterized rhabdoviruses with unknown pathogenic potential. All isolated tibroviruses (BAV, BHV, CPV, SWBV, and TIBV) have only been found in biting midge vectors or in various, apparently healthy non-human mammals (Cybinski et al., 1980; Standfast et al., 1984; Cybinski and Gard, 1986; Gibbs et al., 1989). The discovery of BASV, EKV-1, and EKV-2 genomes in human sera (Grard et al., 2012; Stremlau et al., 2015) suggests that at least some tibroviruses could infect humans. Because BASV was discovered in the serum of a severely ill individual, tibroviruses should be considered pote...
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology - April 25, 2019 Category: Microbiology Source Type: research
The World Is Not Ready for the Next Pandemic
Across China, the virus that could spark the next pandemic is already circulating. It’s a bird flu called H7N9, and true to its name, it mostly infects poultry. Lately, however, it’s started jumping from chickens to humans more readily–bad news, because the virus is a killer. During a recent spike, 88% of people infected got pneumonia, three-quarters ended up in intensive care with severe respiratory problems, and 41% died.
What H7N9 can’t do–yet–is spread easily from person to person, but experts know that could change. The longer the virus spends in humans, the better the chance that i...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - May 4, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Bryan Walsh Tags: Uncategorized CDC Disease ebola Gates Foundation MERS outbreak pandemic Zika Source Type: news
Get the flu vaccine, reduce your risk of death
Last year was a lousy year for the flu vaccine. Hospitalizations for flu hit a nine-year high, and the vaccine prevented flu in only 23% of all recipients, compared with 50% to 60% of recipients in prior years.
Why does the flu vaccine work well in some winters and not others? The flu vaccine primes the immune system to attack two proteins on the surface of the influenza A virus, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Different flu strains have different combinations of these proteins — for example, the strains targeted by recent flu vaccines are H3N2 and H1N1.
Unfortunately, the influenza virus is microbiology’s ans...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Vaccines Flu Shot flu vaccine Source Type: news
10 Good Reasons To Get A Flu Shot
By Melaina Juntti for Men's Journal
How many times have you heard you should get a flu shot? There's good reason for the hype: Over the past few years, the influenza vaccine has prevented millions of flu cases and tens of thousands of related hospitalizations, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although an increasing number of people are getting vaccinated every year, more than half of American men still aren't doing it, for a variety of reasons, most of which aren't backed by science. "Men have this macho sense that if they do get the flu, they can tough it out," says William Schaffner, M.D., chair...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - November 29, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
