Pandemic News and Research

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A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. During a pandemic, transmission can be anticipated in the workplace, not only from patient to workers in health care settings, but also among co-workers in general work settings. A pandemic would cause high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts could range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

Half a million in U.S. could die in flu pandemic

A report from the Trust for America's Health, says the United States only has 965,256 staffed hospital beds, and in the event of a pandemic, half a million Americans could die and more than 2 million could end up in the hospital with serious complications.

27 Jun 2005

Team of experts sent to Vietnam to study bird flu risk

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sent a team of international experts to Vietnam to study whether the H5N1 bird flu virus could be evolving into a form that might trigger a human pandemic.

26 Jun 2005

Expert says the world is not ready for the next pandemic

Michael T. Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Associate Director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense, and Professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health.

21 Jun 2005

Fifty polio cases and one bird flu case reported in Indonesia

Indonesia's health minister has announced that 50 polio cases have been diagnosed in the country since the disease re-emerged there last month.

20 Jun 2005

China used flu drug on birds

The World Health Organization (WHO) is attempting to clarify from China, reports that the government there encouraged farmers to use a human anti-viral drug to treat birds infected with a deadly strain of avian flu.

20 Jun 2005

Pandemics such as Ebola, SARS, and avian influenza demands a more holistic approach to disease control

The threat of potential pandemics such as Ebola, SARS, and avian influenza demands a more holistic approach to disease control, one that prevents diseases from crossing the divide between humans, their livestock, and wildlife, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in the most recent issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.

16 Jun 2005

Tentative approval for Lamivudine tablets

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the tentative approval of Lamivudine Tablets manufactured by Aurobindo Pharma LTD. Hyderabad, India.

16 Jun 2005

First human case of bird flu found in Indonesia

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that the first human case of bird flu has been diagnosed in Indonesia.

16 Jun 2005

Six new bird flu cases in Vietnam

Another six cases of bird flu have been reported in Vietnam, taking the total since December 2004 to 61. Of these 18 have died.

15 Jun 2005

Rimonabant study shows significant improvements in HbA1c and cardiometabolic risk factors in people with type 2 diabetes

The reported results of a one-year phase III study in 1045 people with type 2 diabetes treated with rimonabant, the first in a new class of therapeutic agents called selective CB1 Blockers, were that rimonabant 20 mg significantly improved HbA1c (a measure of blood sugar control), dyslipidemia (abnormal levels of fat in the blood), and systolic blood pressure with a concomitant substantial reduction in abdominal obesity in people with type 2 diabetes treated with oral anti-diabetic medications and requiring further control.

12 Jun 2005

AIDS expert says global strategy needed to combat feminization of HIV/AIDS

Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., a Johns Hopkins physician and scientist, who has spent the best part of the last 25 years leading major efforts to combat HIV and AIDS throughout the world, is calling for global strategies and resources to confront the rapid "feminization" of the AIDS pandemic.

10 Jun 2005

Urgent call for global strategies and resources to confront the rapid "feminization" of the AIDS pandemic

In an article appearing in the journal Science online June 10, Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., professor of infectious diseases at Hopkins and a senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, reports that women have in the last 20 years moved from those least affected by HIV to those in whom the disease is spreading fastest.

10 Jun 2005

UN warns of the losing battle in world AIDS fight

UN officials are saying that their goal of containing the AIDS pandemic by 2015 may now be unrealistic because the spread of the disease is outpacing the efforts of many countries to prevent it.

5 Jun 2005

Progress on HIV/AIDS significant but insufficient

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today shared his hope with a gathering of senior world officials at Headquarters that the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS would have heralded a response that matched the epidemic’s scale, yet progress had been “significant but insufficient”.

3 Jun 2005

Ranbaxy makes further three filings of its Anti-Retroviral (ARVs) formulations

Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited has announced that the Company has made further three filings of its Anti-Retroviral (ARVs) formulations, to the World Health Organization (WHO) for its approval under the latter's pre-qualification project for HIV/AIDS drugs.

30 May 2005