Over the past 70 years richer nations have gradually lost their sense of danger concerning epidemics and serious infections, writes Professor Gordon Dougan. We must now reacquire this instinctive memory.
Two Cambridge risk researchers discuss how national governments are still stuck on "old problems", and run through the things that should be keeping our leaders awake at night.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford have discovered a new molecule that plays a key role in the immune response that is triggered by influenza infections. The molecule, a so-called mini viral RNA, is capable of inducing inflammation and cell death, and was produced at high levels by the 1918 pandemic influenza virus. The findings appeared in Nature Microbiology yesterday (September 17).
How fast could a new flu epidemic spread? The results of the UK’s largest citizen science project of its kind ever attempted, carried out by thousands of volunteers, predict that 43 million people in the UK could be infected in an influenza pandemic, and with up to 886,000 of those infected expected to be fatalities.
The wide diversity of flu in pigs across multiple continents, mostly introduced from humans, highlights the significant potential of new swine flu strains emerging, according to a new study.
New analysis of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the US shows that the pandemic wave was surprisingly slow, and that its spread was likely accelerated by school-age children.
A newly designated Collaborating Centre at the University of Cambridge will support the World Health Organization (WHO) in detecting and responding to major epidemic- and pandemic-prone diseases.
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