Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

New type of male sling procedure to improve the urinary control

Michael Yarborough, a 58-year-old business owner from Waxahachie, Texas, was fortunate. A routine check-up three years ago revealed prostate cancer, but a side effect of his successful surgery was "driving him nuts."

29 Aug 2007

Discovery may lead to fast and cheap method of making vaccines

Researchers may be able to tinker with a single amino acid of an enzyme that helps viruses multiply to render them harmless, according to molecular biologists who say the discovery could pave the way for a fast and cheap method of making vaccines.

29 Aug 2007

German bird flu outbreak could be more widespread than first suspected

Veterinary officials in Germany now believe the outbreak of bird flu on a duck farm in southern Germany was more widespread and of longer duration than was first suspected.

29 Aug 2007

Limited human-to-human spread of Avian-flu virus in Indonesia in 2006 confirmed

In the first systematic, statistical analysis of its kind, infectious-disease-modeling experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center confirm that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in 2006 spread between a small number of people within a family in Indonesia.

28 Aug 2007

Animal model for dengue research

A mosquito-borne disease often known as "break-bone fever" has found a new enemy in a unique type of mouse.

28 Aug 2007

IDM Pharma receives not approvable letter for Mifamurtide for treatment of osteosarcoma

IDM Pharma, Inc. ( NASDAQ:IDMI ) announced today that it received a not approvable letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after completing the review of the new drug application (NDA) for the investigational drug mifamurtide (L-MTP-PE), formerly known as Junovan, for the treatment of non-metastatic osteosarcoma, a rare and often fatal bone tumor that typically affects children and young adults.

28 Aug 2007

New understanding of what makes a major global bacterial infection deadly

Researchers believe they have discovered why a bacterial lung infection is so lethal in the early stages, and it's not what medical authorities had thought, according to research published in the journal Immunity.

28 Aug 2007

Academic comments on horse flu scare

We should not be shocked that equine influenza has emerged in Australia. What is surprising is that we kept it out for so long. The Australian thoroughbred breeding and racing industry has received huge financial benefits from globalisation, but this process carries enormous risks. Foremost is the risk of disease.

28 Aug 2007

Bird flu hits Germany, 160,000 geese slaughtered

Following an outbreak of bird flu at a farm in southern Germany 160,000 geese have been slaughtered and a three-kilometer exclusion zone has been set up around the farm.

27 Aug 2007

One more suspected death from bird flu in Bali

The death of another suspected bird flu patient has put health officials in Bali on a high alert amid fears of a wider outbreak.

27 Aug 2007

MedImmune licenses reverse genetics technology to Novartis

MedImmune, Inc. has announced that it has licensed its proprietary reverse genetics intellectual property to Novartis to support the development and construction of new vaccine strains to produce inactivated human seasonal, pre-pandemic and pandemic influenza vaccines.

24 Aug 2007

Roche and WHO reinforce Tamiflu as primary H5N1 treatment

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reinforced that Tamiflu (oseltamivir) is the primary recommended antiviral of choice in managing patients infected with H5N1 in updated guidance published on the WHO website today.

24 Aug 2007

Environmental tests help predict hospital-acquired Legionnaires' disease risk

A new study spearheaded by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has determined that environmental monitoring of institutional water systems can help to predict the risk of hospital-acquired Legionella pneumonia, better known as Legionnaires disease.

24 Aug 2007