Medical Flu Animations

'Barcoding' Viruses For Rapid Detection Of Mutated Strains
Dr Julian Hiscox and Dr John Barr of the University's Faculty of Biological Sciences are working with the Health Protection Agency Porton (HPA) to build a bank of molecular signatures that will help identify the severity of virus infection from characteristic changes seen in cells...

H1N1 Discovery Paves Way For Universal Flu Vaccine
University of British Columbia researchers have found a potential way to develop universal flu vaccines and eliminate the need for seasonal flu vaccinations. Each year, seasonal influenza causes serious illnesses in three to five million people and 200,000 to 500,000 deaths. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic killed more than 14,000 people worldwide...

Oral Zinc Found To Reduce Common Cold Symptoms In Adults More Than Kids
People who take oral zinc may experience shorter common cold symptoms than those who do not, researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, and McMaster University reported in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).The authors added that adverse effects, especially when higher doses are taken, are common...

Flu Vaccine Rates Improved Via Texting For Low Income Children
According to a study in the April 25 issue of JAMA, the coverage for children to get vaccinated against influenza increased amongst low-income, hard-to-reach, minority children and adolescents if their patients received education-related text message reminders, as compared with the standard care, even though the overall coverage remained low...

Patient Trial For New Asthma Treatment Yields Positive Results
Scientists from the University of Southampton and Synairgen, a respiratory drug development company spun out from the University, can announce positive data from its Phase II clinical trial, into the effectiveness of the drug SNG001 (inhaled interferon beta) for asthma patients...

Age, Flu And Resistance
There is a connection between age and susceptibility to the influenza virus. It can't be explained by frailty in general, because it is not obvious that very small children and the very old are the biggest risk groups...

Full Reports From Trials Should Be Public: Regulators Respond To Tamiflu Recommendations
The full clinical study reports that drugs that have been authorized for use in patients should be made publicly available in order to allow independent re-analysis of the benefits and risks of such drugs, according to leading international experts who base their assertions on their experience with Tamiflu (oseltamivir)...

For An Enhanced Flu Vaccine, Four Works Better Than Three
An intranasal vaccine that includes four weakened strains of influenza could do a better job in protecting children from the flu than current vaccines, Saint Louis University research shows. Before each influenza season, scientists predict which strains of flu will be circulating and make a trivalent vaccine that includes three strains of influenza -- two of influenza A and one of influenza B...

Study Identifies Genetic Regulators Hijacked By Avian And Swine Flu Viruses
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a number of tiny but powerful "genetic regulators" that are hijacked by avian and swine flu viruses during human infection. The discovery, published in the Journal of Virology, could reveal new targets for broad-spectrum antivirals to combat current - and perhaps future - strains of influenza A viruses...

Adjuvanted Flu Vaccine Associated With Child Narcolepsy In Finland
A sudden increase in narcolepsy in Finnish children at the beginning of 2010 was likely related to the Pandemrix vaccine used in response to the H1N1 2009 flu pandemic, according to two reports published in the open access journal PLoS ONE...

Microfluidic Chip Developed To Stem Flu Outbreaks
The H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 underscored weaknesses in methods widely used to diagnose the flu, from frequent false negatives to long wait times for results...

La Nina Could Set The Stage For Flu Pandemics
What do changes in weather and stressed-out birds have to do with your health? In a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jeffry Shaman of Columbia University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University are beginning to see a new link between La Nina conditions and outbreaks of the flu that could help governments and public health officials determine when the ne...

Gene Explains Why Flu Can Be Serious
People with a rare variant of a gene that codes for an anti-viral protein are more likely to end up in hospital seriously ill when they get the flu than others who carry other variants, according to new research led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK that was published in Nature on Sunday...

Gene That Can Transform Mild Influenza To A Life-Threatening Disease
A genetic finding could help explain why influenza becomes a life-threating disease to some people while it has only mild effects in others. New research led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has identified for the first time a human gene that influences how we respond to influenza infection...

The Brazilian Navy And The Spanish Flu
Few people know about the participation of Brazil in Word War I. Although Brazil remained neutral during most of the conflict, it eventually sent a fleet to support the war effort against the central powers. It was the only Latin-American country to do so...