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Swine flu

Analysis and Comment (4)

By_jason_rogers_cc-by-2.0_www.creativecommons.org_licenses_by_2.0_via_wikimedia_commons
Current vaccines are quite good but they offer no protection against novel pandemic strains of the flu. Jason Rogers

Global efforts against flu evolving in the face of continuing threat

By Peter C. Doherty, University of Melbourne

Influenza is never off the news agenda for long. If it’s not the flu season (and it always is in one hemisphere) and the attendant calls for vaccinations, it’s news about vaccines causing problems or new…
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Authors of a new paper suggest a detergent used by CSL in making its flu vaccine could be the cause of the problem. AAP

New theory on why CSL’s flu vaccine caused febrile convulsions in children

By Anne Kelso, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza

A paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia today provides a possible reason for CSL’s 2010 flu vaccine causing febrile convulsions in children. The authors hypothesise that suboptimal use of…
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Mutations of the flu virus render drugs ineffective for treating infected patients. Leonid Mamchenkov

Marvellous mutants: how nimble flu viruses outsmart drugs

By Aeron Hurt, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza

The United Nations Food and Agricultute Organisation is warning authorities to be on high alert after a mutant strain of bird flu was found to be spreading across Asia. While bird flu hasn’t traditionally…
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People with chronic medical conditions and others in high-risk groups should get a flu shot. mcfarlandmo/Wikimedia Commons

Flu is on the rise, Australia … and that’s not to be sniffed at

By Robert Booy, University of Sydney

The number of people suffering from influenza in Australia this year has soared compared to recorded numbers from previous years, with nearly 8,000 cases so far compared to about 2,000 last year. We don…