The swine flu now seems routine, just another human flu circulating among the population.
The virus, a hybrid of swine, avian and human flu, can jump from person to person with relative ease.
Even if an outbreak of a new human flu strain were quickly contained, it could still have drastic economic consequences.
ECONOMIST: The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe | The
Human flu pandemics are expected three to four times every century, though it is still hard to predict when or where the next one will begin.
ECONOMIST: The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe | The
Plans were hatched for how best to respond to the threat from a virus that is infecting poultry around the world and might trigger a deadly pandemic of human flu.
Flu viruses can swap genes with each other, so if someone carrying a human flu virus catches the new bird flu, the two strains could mingle inside the victim's body, creating a new, highly contagious and lethal human plague.
The country's Ministry of Health had then moved to allay fears over the outbreak, saying that although further human bird flu cases were possible throughout China, there wouldn't be a large-scale outbreak, Xinhua and CCTV said.
From December 2005 to February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine flu were documented.
Both groups used ferrets as test subjects, as these animals closely mimic the human response to the flu.
They spiked droplets of human mucus with live flu virus, and then exposed it to air with varying levels of moisture.
So while it is not certain that the Dutch team had created a deadly human strain of bird flu, it seems to be a real possibility.
The catch, Canadian officials say, is that the animals may have caught the flu from a human.
Analysts said with more human infections by the bird flu, some leisure travelers might cut back their trips to China.
Fortunately, such a doomsday scenario is unlikely: none of the other recent outbreaks of avian flu resulted in human epidemics.
Australian company CSL announced this week it planned to start the first human trials of a swine flu vaccine in Australia.
This enzyme is responsible for severing the connection between the flu virus and human cell so it can move on and infect other cells.
But in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Thai doctors report two cases of apparent human-to human transmission of the bird flu.
That has led to concerns that the birds used to make the eggs themselves could succumb to bird flu. (The companies emphasize that the chickens are kept under extremely secure conditions.) There is research going on to use dog, monkey or human cell cultures to produce flu shots, but such production is five to ten years away.
Health authorities are testing a family infected by H7N9 in Shanghai for human-to-human transmission of the new bird flu strain, The Beijing News reports.
Since China reported the first human infections of the new bird flu virus, known as H7N9, on March 31, authorities have had to compete with the online rumor mill.
In other domestic news, the World Health Organization is watching out for mutations and possible human-to-human transmission of the new H7N9 bird flu strain after two family cluster cases - a father-and-son cluster and a husband-and-wife cluster - were detected in Shanghai, China Daily reports.
Close surveillance is vital to check that bird flu is not mutating into a human form.
Aventis is using human retinal cell lines to develop vats of flu serum.
Because people died not from the flu virus itself, but from the human immune system response it triggered.
They figured out the flu kept its virulent characteristics best in human mucus, which Dr. Marr took from the dripping nose of her 1-month-old baby.
Trained at Wayne State and the University of Michigan as a physician and an epidemiologist, Brilliant sees a near-certainty that another AIDS, ebola or bird flu is coming, likely caused by human-animal interaction.
Amid growing public concern over the outbreak, health authorities have promised transparency and stressed that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the new strain of deadly bird flu, China Daily reports.
The move from level three to level four on the WHO's six-level threat scale means the world body has determined the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission -- a major step toward a flu pandemic, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the agency's assistant director-general.
Symptoms of swine flu in humans are expected to resemble regular human seasonal influenza symptoms, including fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, and coughing, the CDC said.
应用推荐