Virus ancestry could help predict next pandemic
Virus family history could help scientists identify which strains have the potential to become the so-called Disease X that causes the next global pandemic.
Virus family history could help scientists identify which strains have the potential to become the so-called Disease X that causes the next global pandemic.
Evolution
Feb 5, 2024
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54
Look back at the chronicle of global pandemics, and the flu pandemic of 1918 stands out as an anomaly for one reason: According to the history books, it struck healthy adults in their prime just as often, if not more so, ...
Archaeology
Oct 9, 2023
2
60
Gabriel Ehrlich is the director of the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics at the University of Michigan, where he forecasts the U.S. and Michigan economies. He discusses the economic impact of the coronavirus locally, ...
Economics & Business
Mar 13, 2020
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2
Perena Gouma, a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has published an article in the journal Sensors that describes her invention of a hand-held breath monitor ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 31, 2017
4
1725
Analyses of Twitter feeds have been used to track flu epidemics, predict stock market changes and do political polling, but now that the National Football League season is underway, the natural question is: Can Twitter help ...
Computer Sciences
Sep 12, 2013
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0
(Phys.org)—Smart viruses find ways around host defenses. In the case of the influenza viruses A and B, rapid genetic changes and resistance to available therapies make it hard to combat flu epidemics in humans. Mortality ...
Biochemistry
Oct 11, 2012
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0
An international research team has manufactured a new protein that can combat deadly flu epidemics.
Biotechnology
May 27, 2012
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0
New research has looked at whether social media could be used to track an event or phenomenon, such as flu outbreaks and rainfall rates.
Internet
Nov 1, 2011
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0
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a study published September 28th ahead of print in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers measured oseltamivir carboxylate (OC), the active metabolite of the popular anti-influenza ...
Environment
Oct 1, 2009
1
0
Spam emails using "swine flu" as a keyword phrase have flooded the Internet as opportunists seek to exploit concerns over the outbreak of the virus, a global cyber security firm warned Thursday.
Internet
Apr 30, 2009
0
0
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in recent history. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the Spanish influenza estimated as being responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years. The most recent ones were the Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.
Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species causing outbreaks in domestic poultry and may give rise to human influenza pandemics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns[when?] that there is a substantial risk of an influenza pandemic within the next few years[when?]. One of the strongest candidates is a highly pathogenic variation of the H5N1 subtype of Influenza A virus. As of 2006, prepandemic influenza vaccines are being developed against the most likely suspects which include H5N1, H7N1, and H9N2. Certain scholars and senior policy advisors argue that pandemic influenza represents a substantive threat to the international economy, to each nation's national security, and a challenge to international governance.
On 11 June 2009, a new strain of H1N1 influenza was declared to be a global pandemic (Stage 6) by the World Health Organization after evidence of spreading in the southern hemisphere.
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