Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Nepstar second quarter revenue increases 7.3% to US$93.8 million

China Nepstar Chain Drugstore Ltd., the largest retail drugstore chain in China based on the number of directly operated stores, today announced its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2011.

23 Aug 2011

HRS, KGH reduce bed rental expenditures by 83%

Leveraging their membership with Amerinet affiliate Health Resource Services (HRS), Kennewick General Hospital (KGH), a 101-bed acute care facility in southeastern Washington state, decreased its bed rental expenditures by 83 percent, and positively impacted quality patient care through the economical acquisition of Hill-Rom critical care and bariatric beds.

23 Aug 2011

No effective treatment yet for acute lung injury

Patients can essentially drown in their own fluids when trauma and infection prompt blood vessels to leak, flooding millions of air sacs in their lungs.

22 Aug 2011

Micro-organisms hide themselves from immune defences

That micro-organisms have a great capacity to vary their surface structure is well known. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to develop vaccines against HIV and malaria, and why new influenza vaccines have to be produced every year. But it seems that these micro-organisms are also able to completely avoid activating a strong immune response in the person attacked.

22 Aug 2011

Narcolepsy more prevalent in China during April

New research shows that the occurrence of narcolepsy in China is highly correlated to a seasonal pattern, with onset most frequent in April.

22 Aug 2011

Winter airway infections appear to trigger narcolepsy: Study

The onset of narcolepsy appears to follow seasonal patterns of H1N1 and other upper airway infections, according to a new study of patients in China that was led by Stanford University School of Medicine narcolepsy expert Emmanuel Mignot, MD.

22 Aug 2011

FDA approves Seattle Genetics ADCETRIS drug to treat Hodgkin lymphoma, ALCL

Seattle Genetics, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval of ADCETRISTM for two indications: (1) the treatment of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma after failure of autologous stem cell transplant or after failure of at least two prior multi-agent chemotherapy regimens in patients who are not ASCT candidates, and (2) the treatment of patients with systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma after failure of at least one prior multi-agent chemotherapy regimen.

20 Aug 2011

Seattle Genetics receives FDA approval for Adcetris to treat Hodgkin lymphoma, ALCL

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Adcetris to treat Hodgkin lymphoma and a rare lymphoma known as systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

20 Aug 2011

Emory team identifies conditions that make memory T cells slip away during chronic infections

After recovering from the flu or another acute infection, your immune system is ready to react quickly if you run into the same virus again. White blood cells called memory T cells develop during the infection and help the immune system remember the virus and attack it if it comes back.

19 Aug 2011

Cerus to support ongoing development of INTERCEPT red cell system

Cerus Corporation announced today that it has received a $2.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense to support the advanced development of the company's technology for inactivating pathogens and leukocytes in red blood cells.

19 Aug 2011

H1N1 vaccine safe, effective for hemodialysis and kidney transplant patients

When the influenza A (H1N1) virus swept around the world in spring 2009, infection was presumed to be more common in immunosuppressed patients, such as those who have had a kidney transplant. Later that year, the International Societies of Transplantation recommended that transplant recipients receive at least one dose of the H1N1 vaccine, although there was no information on the efficacy of the vaccine in that population.

19 Aug 2011

Powerful X-rays help develop new drug treatment for malignant melanoma

Powerful X-ray technology developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) national laboratories is revealing new insights into diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to the swine flu, and, most recently, enabled the discovery of a groundbreaking new drug treatment for malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

19 Aug 2011

Large-scale population imaging reveals robust sparse coding in Drosophila mushroom body

A research team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) led by Assistant Professor Glenn Turner has published results of experiments that show large populations of neurons in the brains of living fruit flies responding simultaneously to a variety of odors.

19 Aug 2011

Flu immunization targets fall short for health workers and pregnant women

According to a new survey despite recent improvements in influenza vaccination rates among U.S. health care personnel, their rates for the 2010-2011 flu season still fell short of national health objectives.

18 Aug 2011

Multi-country study of severe pneumonia in hospitalized children

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced on Tuesday the launch of "a groundbreaking new study called the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study … a large multi-country case-control study of severe pneumonia in hospitalized children under five years of age … being conducted in Bangladesh, The Gambia, Kenya, Mali, South Africa, Thailand, and Zambia," according to a JHSPH press release.

18 Aug 2011

Vitamin C shows promise against Alzheimer's disease

Researchers at Lund University have discovered a new function for vitamin C. Treatment with vitamin C can dissolve the toxic protein aggregates that build up in the brain in Alzheimer's disease.

18 Aug 2011

World must invest equally in bird flu prevention and response

The "reports during the past two weeks of two recent infections and another death" from H5N1 (avian) influenza "raised little concern except among public health officials," Robert Gatter, co-director of the Center for Health Law Studies and professor of law at Saint Louis University, writes in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece, adding that "the fact that bird flu in developing nations receives little public attention reveals that the world has become complacent about this threat."

18 Aug 2011

Skin infection admissions are now the seventh-most-common reason for hospitalizations

The number of children hospitalized for skin and soft-tissue infections, most due to community-acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has more than doubled since 2000, a study by researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere has found.

18 Aug 2011

PERCH study to look at current and likely future causes of childhood pneumonia

Pneumonia kills more children around the world than any other disease, but the last major effort to study the causes of childhood pneumonia across many countries was conducted in the 1980's. This week, a groundbreaking new study called the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study gets off the ground.

17 Aug 2011

Emotions hinder disease eradication

In a New York Times essay, journalist Donald McNeil writes, "To a doctor, all epidemics are objectively different … But to the mortals they mow down, all epidemics are emotionally alike — an onslaught of fear, awe, repulsion, stigma, denial, rage and blame — and doctors would be foolish to forget that."

17 Aug 2011