Influenza News and Research

Latest Influenza News and Research

Antiviral compound from banana plants shows potential for clinical use against influenza

What keeps most infectious disease researchers up at night aren't infamous viruses like Ebola. Instead, influenza, commonly known as the flu, continues to be a clear and present danger to humanity.

21 Jan 2020

Fitness tracker devices show potential as predictors of flu outbreaks

Researchers at Scripps Research Translational Institute have found that fitness tracker devices – wearable tracker devices that measure heart rate and sleep duration – are better predictors of real-time flu outbreaks than current surveillance methods.

17 Jan 2020

Important things you need to know about seasonal flu

Seasonal flu is a serious illness causing approximately 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths each year. Federal health officials are reporting that the 2019-2020 flu season could be the worst in decades.

13 Jan 2020

UMSOM research shows even milder cases of diarrheal diseases can lead to child mortality

Diarrheal diseases are a leading cause of death for young children, accounting for nine percent of all deaths worldwide in children under five years of age, with most occurring in children under two years of age.

9 Jan 2020

Experts say source of newly identified virus in China must be found

Scientists have identified the virus likely to have caused a pneumonia-like illness that has caused an outbreak in Wuhan, China.

9 Jan 2020

Researchers one step closer to developing vaccines that protect infants against infections

A new Penn Medicine study puts researchers within closer reach of vaccines that can protect infants against infections by overcoming a mother's antibodies, which are known to shut down immune defenses initiated by conventional vaccines.

9 Jan 2020

Researchers develop a simple approach to accurately predict disease outbreaks

Infectious diseases have a substantially growing impact on the health of communities around the world and pressure to both predict and prevent such diseases is ever-growing.

8 Jan 2020

Growing influenza vaccines inside chicken eggs can make them less effective, say some experts

Flu season is underway in the Northern Hemisphere, sickening millions of people and in rare cases, causing hospitalization or death. The best prevention is a flu shot, but it's not unusual for these vaccines to be less effective than intended. Some researchers suspect that the common practice of producing vaccines in chicken eggs could be partially to blame, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.

8 Jan 2020

New study characterizes how Twitter users discuss miscarriage, preterm birth

A new Boston University School of Public Health study characterizes how Twitter users discuss miscarriage and preterm birth. Published in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, the study finds that miscarriage disclosures by Michelle Obama and other public figures prompted spikes in discussion, and in other people sharing their own experiences of miscarriage.

8 Jan 2020

Airway Therapeutics receives funding to advance BPD treatment

Airway Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of biologics to break the injury cycle of inflammation for patients with respiratory and inflammatory diseases, announced today the closing of a $15.5 million oversubscribed Series C financing round.

8 Jan 2020

NYU Langone Health announces launch of a multidisciplinary Vaccine Center

Building on its illustrious landmark-achieving history in the field of immunology, NYU Langone Health announced today the launch of a Vaccine Center that combines basic research, clinical studies, and public health outreach to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and other immunological disorders.

7 Jan 2020

Novel nanoparticle vaccine provides long-lasting protection against influenza virus

A novel nanoparticle vaccine that combines two major influenza proteins is effective in providing broad, long-lasting protection against influenza virus in mice, showing promise as a universal flu vaccine, according to a study by the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

7 Jan 2020

Can FDA-approved flu shots be repurposed as treatments for cancer?

Changing the microenvironment of tumors to increase the immune system's response to them has been the goal of countless research and clinical studies including the most recent use of checkpoint inhibitory antibodies.

7 Jan 2020

CDC warns that current flu season is due to be particularly long and severe

The current flu season is on track to be one of the most severe in years, according to new data from the CDC.

6 Jan 2020

GlobalData: Asia-Pacific seasonal influenza vaccine market set to reach US$1bn by 2028

The size of the seasonal influenza vaccine market across the three major Asia-Pacific (APAC) growth markets (3GM) will grow at a modest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.4% from US$914m in 2018 to US$1.05bn in 2028, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

2 Jan 2020

Diarrhea in young children linked to La Niña climate conditions

A study in Botswana by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health scientists finds that spikes in cases of life-threatening diarrhea in young children are associated with La Niña climate conditions.

30 Dec 2019

Super fast novel device catches and identifies viruses

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 23, 2019, describes a novel device developed by a team of researchers at Penn State and New York University. Not only can this instrument capture different types of virus, it can tell what kind they are.

23 Dec 2019

Research shows how the hepatitis D virus copies itself

A team of researchers has discovered how one crucial step occurs in the lifecycle of the hepatitis D virus (HDV), which causes the widespread and hard to treat liver inflammation called hepatitis D. The study, which was published recently in the Journal of Virology, could help develop antiviral therapy to control this disease.

22 Dec 2019

NIAID to fund VTEU program and its companion leadership group

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health, today announced the establishment of the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium, a clinical trials network that will encompass the Institute's long-standing Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs) and create a new consortium leadership group

20 Dec 2019

Researchers reveal the mystery in replication cycle of hepatitis D virus

A team led by Professor Patrick Labonté at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in Montreal, Canada has identified the role of a key process in the replication cycle of the hepatitis D virus, an infection that is still very difficult to cure and affects 15 to 20 million people worldwide.

19 Dec 2019