influenza
The number of reported cases of Gillain-Barre syndrome (a rare paralytic disorder) that occur following influenza vaccination has decreased over the past 12 years, according to a new study. Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is a paralytic disorder in which the body's immune system affects part of the peripheral nervous system, according to background information in the article. The first symptoms include varying degrees of weakness or tingling sensations in the legs followed by progressive weakness. Concerns about the risk of developing GBS following influenza vaccination have been present since an association was first noticed during the 1976-1977 A/New Jersey (''swine influenza'') season.
The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) will sequence a large number of human isolates of the influenza virus as part of a landmark influenza genome sequencing project announced Monday by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced today the awarding of a contract to Sanofi Aventis Inc., part of the Sanofi Aventis Group, to ensure there are enough eggs on hand to manufacture flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak or future vaccine shortages. This contract will ensure eggs are available to permit vaccine production at any time during the year, which will prevent gaps in flu vaccine supply due to inflexible, tightly planned manufacturing schedules, inadequate surge capacity, and dependency on foreign manufacturers. It also will provide for the stockpiling of other needed vaccine manufacturing supplies for ready availability.
A study from the Netherlands suggests that elderly persons who receive a yearly influenza vaccination have reduced risk of death from all causes, according to a new study. ''Influenza-associated morbidity and mortality increase with age, especially for individuals with high-risk conditions,'' the authors provide as background information in the article. ''The effectiveness of vaccination has been reported to decrease in high-risk persons. Annual influenza revaccination has been proposed as a strategy to increase vaccination effectiveness.''
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that none of the influenza vaccine manufactured by the Chiron Corporation for the U.S. market is safe for use. This determination is based on FDA's evaluation and inspection of Chiron's influenza vaccine manufacturing plant in Liverpool, England, which concluded this afternoon. The purpose of the FDA inspection was both to evaluate Chiron's investigation, testing and assessment of the defects detected in nine of the one hundred lots of their finished flu vaccine (Fluvirin) manufactured for this year's flu season and also to evaluate their determination that the risk of defects was confined to those specific lots.
On October 5, 2004, CDC was notified by Chiron Corporation that none of its influenza vaccine (Fluvirin) would be available for distribution in the United States for the 2004-05 influenza season. The company indicated that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom, where Chiron's Fluvirin vaccine is produced, has suspended the company's license to manufacture Fluvirin vaccine in its Liverpool facility for 3 months, preventing any release of this vaccine for this influenza season.
Researchers report that four consecutive days of moderate exercise in mice after they were infected with influenza protects them from dying, compared with mice that didn't exercise. This protective effect was more evident in mice greater than 16 weeks of age, an age at which they are immunologically more mature. The takeaway message: exercise regularly because you never know when you'll be exposed!
To stick to cells in the respiratory tract and start an infection, the bacterium Haemophilus influenza has to secrete a glue-like protein. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report this week that a study of the valve that lets out the glue has produced some surprising information.
A drug envisioned as a front-line defense for the next flu pandemic might have a genetic Achilles' heel that results in a drug-resistant influenza virus capable of infecting new human hosts, according to a new study. The study of Japanese children with influenza and treated with the antiviral drug oseltamivir was conducted by an international team of researchers led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo. Results of the study showed that nearly 20 percent of patients treated with the drug produced mutant drug-resistant viruses as soon as four days after treatment. Moreover, patients continued to shed significant amounts of infectious viral particles even after five days of treatment with the potent antiviral agent.
Tracking the spread of new or re-emergent diseases such as SARS or smallpox is essential in controlling disease epidemics, but horse-and-buggy concepts of how diseases spread have been supplanted by 21st-century realities. ''In the past, one expected the spread of disease to be based on distance, and the closest town would be the location of the next outbreak,'' said Ottar Bjornstad, assistant professor of entomology and biology. ''Today, it is very different. Even excluding air transportation, someone like me is more likely to go to New York City than Lewistown, Pa., even though Lewistown is closer to where I live.''
A new study indicates that prenatal exposure to influenza may increase the risk for development of schizophrenia years later. The study evaluated archived sera from pregnant women, who participated in a large birth cohort from 1959-1966. The study has shown for the first time that serologically documented prenatal exposure to influenza is associated with schizophrenia. The risk of schizophrenia was increased threefold when influenza occurred during the first half of pregnancy; however when influenza occurred during the second half of pregnancy, no increased risk was observed.
Scientists have developed a computer modeling method for mapping the evolution of the influenza virus. The method could soon help medical researchers worldwide develop a better understanding of certain mutations in influenza and other viruses that allow diseases to dodge the human immune system.
An avian influenza virus that has caused three major outbreaks among poultry and killed several people in East Asia over the past seven years arose through a series of genetic reassortment events with other viruses. Reassortment is the swapping of genes when two or more viruses infect the same animal.
Researchers have identified a protein in the immune system that appears to play a crucial role in protecting against deadly forms of influenza, and may be particularly important in protecting against emerging flu viruses like the avian flu. The researchers believe that a vaccine made with a live but weakened strain of flu virus ? such as the inhaled flu vaccine introduced last year ? may activate this part of the immune system and offer the best defense against avian flu.
By solving a long-standing puzzle about how the influenza virus assembles its genetic contents into infectious particles that enable the virus to spread from cell to cell, scientists have opened a new gateway to a better understanding of one of the world's most virulent diseases. This insight into the genetic workings that underpin infection by flu, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides not only a better basic understanding of how flu and other viruses work, but holds significant promise for new and improved vaccines and drugs to combat the disease by exposing the genetic trick it uses to form virus particles.
