influenza

I've recently written a couple of posts about how evolution is used in medicine. Randolph Nesse and Stephen Stearns in Evolutionary Applications have written an article about evolutionary medicine. Here's one part that provides some additional examples (italics mine): Some of the most useful applications of evolution often do not use evolutionary theory directly; instead they use technologies developed by evolutionary biologists. In particular, methods for reconstructing phylogenies are being applied to genetic data with very practical results. HIV is especially susceptible to such methods…
Olivia Judson describes what it would take to prevent almost all rabies deaths from Africa (rabies currently kills around 55,000 people annually): To eliminate the disease from humans, therefore, it needs to be eliminated from dogs. And the way to do that is through dog vaccination. (At first, it may seem perverse to vaccinate dogs rather than humans, given that it's humans we want to protect. But because rabies is spread by dogs, not people, we can't break the chain of transmission unless we vaccinate the animals that spread it.) The crucial factor in predicting the spread of an infectious…
It's been awhile since I wrote anything on influenza. It's certainly not that nothing interesting has happened recently--far from it, there are new stories on influenza out every day. Rather, there are just a lot of people out there covering it, and covering it well. However, it's been an unusually busy few days on the influenza front, so I thought I'd update after the jump. First, though much of the mainstream media has lost interest in avian influenza, scientists are still busy keeping an eye on things--and H5N1 is still spreading. Human cases have now been reported in Pakistan,…
Revere has been covering the situation in Indonesia regarding sharing of influenza viruses with the US and other countries. For those of you who don't follow these issues, Indonesia has been the country hardest hit thus far by H5N1 (113 cases and 91 deaths as of 11/12/07). However, while one might think they would welcome outside help with diagnostics and strain typing, they've been very reluctant to share their viruses. Revere explains: But Indonesia still refuses to share its human H5N1 isolates, contending they get nothing tangible from an arrangement which is likely to lead to…
Welcome to this month's edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds! Sit back with a cup of mulled cider and enjoy the best of the past month: Revere at Effect Measure tells the tale of Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 19A--a serotype that's not included in the current vaccine, but has increasingly found as a cause of ear aches in children. Of course, in addition to ear infection, 'tis the season for influenza. As such, it's timely that Highlight Health, Walter emphasizes the importance of influenza vaccination. My own addition to this month's carnival touches on similar themes: how kids'…
A few news stories hit my inbox all at once yesterday--and the combination of them doesn't bode well for childrens' health; more after the jump. First, despite several years now of banging the drum for having kids vaccinated against influenza, they're still being overlooked when it comes to pandemic planning: Children would likely be both prime spreaders and targets of a flu pandemic, but they're being overlooked in the nation's preparations for the next super-flu, pediatricians and public health advocates reported Wednesday. The report urges the government to improve planned child…
We're getting worse at washing our hands according to the Baltimore Sun. One thing I've said many times before, but it bears repeating: the best way to avoid getting sick is to limit contact with someone else who is sick. While that sounds obvious, one very good way to do that is handwashing. Handwashing breaks the 'transmission network' and essentially isolates the sick person. If you view preventing infectious disease as a question of how can I protect myself from disease, then we've already lost. The best measures (vaccination and handwashing) aren't just about protecting yourself,…
I asked yesterday what readers considered the most important diseases in history. This was prompted by a new ASM Press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World, written by Irwin Sherman. As I mentioned, Sherman included many diseases readers expected--plague, cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis, malaria, influenza, yellow fever, and AIDS. He didn't include a few that popped up repeatedly in the comments--leprosy, measles, and typhoid (or typhus, for that matter). While I think a study of these could have been illuminating (especially leprosy, since much of the stigma…
In response to this post about annual influenza (also crossposted here), I received several emails and comments that missed the whole point. I am not denigrating the importance of 'other' diseases. AIDS and cancer are worth curing and preventing. My point about influenza is that preventing most of the deaths can be thought of as 'low-hanging fruit.' Unlike AIDS or various cancers (there is no single 'cancer'), we don't need a medical or technological breakthrough that might or might not happen. We also don't need behavioral modification, such as STD awareness or smoking cessation…
Those familiar with the history of influenza probably know about the 1918 outbreak of swine influenza in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In the fall of that year, the National Swine Show and Exposition in Cedar Rapids opened, bringing people and their hogs from miles around. Soon after it opened its doors, people noticed their swine were becoming sick--and the symptoms looked suspisciously like those of human influenza. When the virus was characterized years later, it was indeed found to be the influenza virus--and it was very similar to ones that were isolated from humans. This characterization of…
This post by ScienceBlogling revere about the horrendous human cost of influenza is getting some serious exposure. This gives me an excuse to mention something I haven't in a long time: Stop worrying about avian influenza. Get serious about 'ordinary' influenza. Why? Last year, 'ordinary' influenza killed roughly 36,000 U.S. residents. That's about equal to breast cancer which kills 40,000 annually. Before the polio vaccine, the polio virus killed 3,000 people annually, and, even if you adjust for population increases, that number would be roughly 9,000 in today's terms. HIV/AIDS kills…
Today is the kids' last day of school, and just happens to be an early dismissal as well, so I'll be busy with them and not tied to the computer this morning/afternoon. However, there are tons of good things to read elsewhere. First, Orac has a long-awaited update on the Tripoli Six: the group of nurses and doctors accused of killing children in Libya by deliberately infecting them with HIV. The science exonerated them, but that didn't change the court outcome, and I've not seen updates until now. Next, Revere writes about the H7N2 influenza outbreak in Wales, reminding us (as as I've…
I've mentioned several times here at Aetiology that, when it comes to pandemic influenza preparedness, we need more than just vaccines specific for H5N1. Though this virus looks like a looming threat right now, we can't be 100% certain that it will actually cause the next global pandemic; while we're focused on H5N1, a new strain of H2N2 (or another serotype) may pop up out of the woodwork, catching us unawares. However, while this is well known in the infectious disease community and the scientific community, it's been rare to read such information in the mainstream media. Therefore, this…
Yesterday, the NY Times had an article about using vaccination to eliminate or greatly reduce E. coli O157:H7 infections. Strategies differ: some would vaccinate the cows, while others would vaccinate people. The new threat due to E. coli O157:H7 isn't from contaminated meat, but from contaminated vegetables, such as the spinach outbreak. Unfortunately, I don't think vaccination is going to work. We'll ignore the notion that if we were to institute a mass vaccination campaign of either cattle or people, we might want to target something that kills more than 61 people per year, and, in…
Tonight, at 6:30pm, at the Boston Public Library, there's a meeting "Preparing Boston Residents for Pandemic Flu." I'm going, but with a great deal of pessimism. The reason I'm pessimistic, as I've said so many times on this blog, every year roughly 36,000 U.S. residents die from 'ordinary' influenza. We know how to make the vaccine. We could, if we so desired, produce sufficient vaccine. We know whom we should be vaccinating to maximize the vaccine's effectiveness (and, no, we don't routinely vaccinate those people--5 to 18 year olds). And doing all things things would be the needed…
It's difficult to believe that it's been over a year since I last wrote a post on the use of masks in the event of an influenza pandemic. Since then, there's been a virtual glut of information out there, and from what I've seen at least, people, businesses, organizations, government, etc. interested in preparation seem to be taking more of a structured approach, rather than a knee-jerk reaction that we saw last year with Tamiflu hoarding and stockpiling masks, which, as I mentioned in the post linked above, have uncertain effectiveness in the event of a pandemic. I also noted that one big…
From the archives comes this post about the effect antibiotic resistance could have during an influenza outbreak. I recently corresponded with someone in a position to make public health policy who wanted to know what effect antibiotic resistance would have on avian influenza (this makes me think of Kristof's recent column). Since I regularly encounter similar questions, I thought it worthwhile to share this (I've removed other parts that aren't relevant to the matter). Also, on occasion, I like to demonstrate that the Mad Biologist isn't always Mad...: Anti-viral resistance. While…
Influenza season is wrapping up here in the United States, and it seems so far that the 2006-7 season was pretty typical. The first cases of the disease were reported in late October, and cases were sporadic throughout November and early December. After increasing a bit in mid-late December of 2006, outbreaks declined slightly in January, and then picked up again later that month, increasing again in February before falling again, and continuing to do so in March. Early reports suggest that the vaccine matched the circulating strains pretty well, and that most of the isolates which were…
One of the few predictable statistics in American public health is that between 35,000-40,000 people will die every year from 'ordinary' influenza. Most of these deaths are preventable. Yet we do nothing. In the U.S., influenza kills approximately the same number of people every year as breast cancer does. But unlike breast cancer, we don't need to run, walk, jump, pogostick, or unicycle for the 'cure.' All we need to do is vaccinate enough of the appropriate people. It's that simple. An effective influenza vaccination policy would involve the mass vaccination of those most likely to…
I have a host of collected links and one-liner posts that I hoped I'd get to this week, but just didn't have the time for. So, rather than let them collect dust any longer, I'll put a number of "greatest hits" in microbiology and public health from the past week or so after the fold: John McCain isn't sure if condoms help to prevent HIV transmission. Mike and Josh take him down. The fight against guinea worm, an excruciatingly painful disease, is in the home stretch--but facing one of its toughest obstacles. The proposed childrens' health study may receive funding after all. A new…