First trial of a universal flu vaccine has begun

DanyC submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.reutershealth.com)

Human clinical trials of a universal flu vaccine that could protect against all `A' strains of the influenza virus has been started, Acambis Plc, a British biotech company said.

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Blood of bird flu survivors give promising antibodies

saury submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.newscientist.com)

AT first the two Vietnamese adults had nothing in common but the good fortune to survive a brush with H5N1 bird flu. Now they share something else: their immortalised blood cells may help stop bird flu from becoming a global pandemic.

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Two Vietnamese women have bird flu - report

Reviver submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.reutershealth.com)

Two Vietnamese women have tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, but one has recovered while the other is in intensive care, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday.The online newspaper Vietnamnet quoted the director of the Vietnam Administration of Preventive Medicine Nguyen Huy Nga as confirming the two women, ages 28 and 29, from the northern provinces of Thanh Hoa and Ha Nam, had bird flu.

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Keeping people apart to fight a flu pandemic ,Really?

Reviver submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.newscientist.com)

During a flu pandemic, simply keeping people apart until they are vaccinated can significantly reduce the number of deaths. However, getting it right will not be easy, suggests a study of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.Martin Bootsma of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London studied data from 16 US cities that used various measures to keep people apart, including closing schools and churches. They found that one of the most important factors in minimising deaths was how long these measures were applied for.

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Indonesia eyes bird flu vaccine cooperation with Egypt

amanda submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.reuters.com)

"Indonesia is looking to work with Egypt to produce a human bird flu vaccine, its trade minister said on Tuesday."

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Quick Action Slowed Spread of 1918 Flu

amanda submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciam.com)

"U.S. cities slowed the spread of the 1918 pandemic flu by measures such as closing schools and churches and banning mass gatherings, thereby reducing the severity of outbreaks in certain locations, according to a pair of new studies. A few cities appear to have reduced flu transmission so well that they lifted the control measures too early and allowed the virus to spread rapidly again. Researchers say that such practices could, in principle, limit the death toll of a future pandemic, but authorities would have to implement them early and long enough. "

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Bird Flu Comes to Egypt

DanyC submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.washingtonpost.com)

last February, thirteen of the 24 Egyptians who have contracted the H5N1 strain have died. Most of the infected have been women or girls, who normally tend to look after chickens and turkeys kept in the backyards of Egyptian homes. Now, a 4-year-old Egyptian boy has contracted the potentially deadly strain of bird flu, bringing to two dozen the number of people to be diagnosed with the disease since it appeared in the country. Egypt is on a main route for migratory birds, which are believed to have brought disease from Asia. Who will be the next ?

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Light Shed On Transmission Of Flu Between Birds And Humans

psychologist submitted, created time 1 year 10 months (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Another highly infectious avian strain of H5N1, has caused outbreaks of bird flu around the world. There is great concern that this virus might also mutate to allow human-to-human transmission and cause another catastrophic pandemic. This study which is published in the current issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, investigates the structure and function of the protein and sheds light on how polymerase mutations contribute to transmission of avian flu to humans.

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Pandemic flu may be only two mutations away

lifestory submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.newscientist.com)

The difference between a flu virus that kills millions, and one that kills only a few comes down to just two amino acid changes, researchers say.

The finding could allow scientists to stay one step ahead of an H5N1 flu pandemic by screening for the specific mutations that would enable it to spread.

A new study investigating the difference between the 1918 pandemic flu virus – which killed at least 50 million people – and a virus which kills but does not spread turned out to be two small mutations on the virus’s surface

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