An international team of researchers has demonstrated that among patients hospitalized for influenza, those who were vaccinated had less severe infections, including reducing the odds for children requiring admittance to an intensive care unit by almost half.
Amid the loosening of COVID-19 precautions and a sharp increase in flu cases in the Southern Hemisphere, Cedars-Sinai experts are warning the public to prepare for a bad flu season this year.
Texas already has a moderately high rate of flu cases in September. This doesn’t look good for flu season, which was uncharacteristically low last year because of masks and people isolating. Houston Methodist experts are encouraging the community to get the flu shot early. Experts say cases aren't usually seen this high until December, which is when the season usually peaks.
In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the coronavirus was everywhere – stuck to our cellphone screens, smeared on our mail, dangling from doorknobs, even clinging to our cereal boxes. Except that it wasn’t.
Despite public health guidance suggesting surfaces be disinfected to stop the spread of COVID-19, the virus wasn’t significantly transmitted through inanimate surfaces and objects, what microbiologists call “fomites.” As with all respiratory viruses – from the flu to the common cold – transmission was and remains almost exclusively airborne.
Emanuel Goldman, a professor of microbiology at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, was among the first scientists to challenge conventional wisdom by warning that hygiene theater – overzealous disinfection of surfaces – had “become counterproductive” for public health.
Scientists have created a face mask that can detect common respiratory viruses, including influenza and the coronavirus, in the air in droplets or aerosols.
The Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases has awarded University Hospitals of Cleveland a sizable grant to support its assignment as a study site in the United States Flu Vaccine Effectiveness Network.
Many respiratory infections, such as influenza or COVID-19 add significant stress to cells and organs, which can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which itself can eventually cause death in aged or sensitive individuals.
A new universal flu vaccine protects against diverse variants of both influenza A and B viruses in mice, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
A new poll shows that 61% of people over 50 who have already gotten at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine are very likely to roll up their sleeves this fall to get an updated booster shot once they become available.
That percentage might increase if health care providers specifically recommend the updated vaccine to their patients, the poll suggests.
JMIR Publications recently published "Diagnostic Accuracy of an At-Home, Rapid Self-test for Influenza: Prospective Comparative Accuracy Study" in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance which reported that rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for influenza used by individuals at home could potentially expand access to testing and reduce the impact of influenza on health systems. Improving access to testing could lead to earlier diagnosis following symptom onset, allowing more rapid interventions for those who test positive, including behavioral changes to minimize spread.
A new universal flu vaccine constructed with key parts of the influenza virus offers broad cross protection against different strains and subtypes of influenza A viruses in young and aged populations, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
In ACS Infectious Diseases, scientists now report that apratoxin S4, an anticancer drug candidate that targets a human protein, can interfere with the replication of many viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A, offering a possible pan-viral therapy.
People who received at least one influenza vaccine were 40% less likely than their non-vaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer’s disease over the course of four years, according to a new study from UTHealth Houston.
A collaborative study from UT Southwestern scientists has identified a new function for a protein called TAO2 that appears to be key to inhibiting replication of the influenza virus, which sickens millions of individuals worldwide each year and kills hundreds of thousands. The findings were published in PNAS.
Researchers at UH Rainbow published new findings that COVID-19 is not equivalent to flu infection for children. Among 66 pediatric ICUs in the US, the number admitted each quarter with COVID-19 or MIS-C during the first 15 months of the pandemic was twice as high as that for flu pre-pandemic.