Cold and Flu News & Features

Flu Activity Is Low -- For Now By Steven ReinbergHealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Oct. 25, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Although this flu season is off to a slow start, U.S. health officials are urging everyone to get vaccinated now.Why? Last year was one of the worst flu seasons on record, yet fewer Americans got a flu shot than in years past. In fact, less than four in 10 adults were protected against flu and its complications last winter, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."Right now flu activity is low, with just a smattering of

The drug's approval was based on two clinical trials of more than 1,800 patients who took either Xofluza, a placebo or another antiviral flu treatment within 48 hours of experiencing flu symptoms.

Flu season is imminent, and CDC continues to remind that everyone 6 months and older to get vaccinated. It’s too soon to know whether the strains will be as bad as last year, but even when flu activity is low, people get sick.

In a new study, about 12 percent of bacteria, on average, were able to reproduce in dark rooms, compared with 6.8 percent in sunlit rooms, and 6.1 percent in rooms exposed to UV light, ABC News reported.

A city's flu season is apt to last longer as its population increases and workplaces become more focused within a few key spots, a new study suggests.

Neanderthal genes -- the result of interbreeding with humans -- probably gave people today some protection against viruses that our ancestors encountered when they left Africa, new research suggests.

New research suggests the amount and type of organisms residing in the nose might explain why some people's symptoms are worse than others -- even if they are infected with the same strain of virus.

In addition to the deaths, the flu put about 900,000 people in the hospital. Flu cases started ramping up in November 2017 and ran high through the following March, according to the CDC.

The 2017-2018 flu season was made worse by two factors: strains that hit the very young and elderly especially hard, and a poor matchup between those strains and those in the flu vaccine.

Researchers are testing an injection-free vaccine that looks like a Band-Aid you place on your arm. Their initial hope is to create such a vaccine that would allow for a rapid public health response in case of a pandemic flu.

The study also found it as effective as the current standard drug, oseltamivir (Tamiflu), at controlling symptoms such as coughing, sore throat, headache, fever, muscle and joint pain, and fatigue.

Pediatricians should offer flu vaccine injections to all children 6 months and older as soon as it becomes available, preferably by the end of October, the AAP said in a news release.

Biologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, identified more than 8,100 combinations of four or five antibiotics that appear effective against harmful bacteria.

Researchers took samples from a variety of of surfaces at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland during the winter of 2016 and found evidence of respiratory viruses on 10 percent of the surfaces.

The CDC said that about 100 had complained of some sort of illness, some with milder symptoms, some who needed to be hospitalized. The plane was being held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Hundreds of products including nasal sprays and baby oral gels sold at CVS, Walgreens, Dollar General, Family Dollar and other stores are being recalled because of possible contamination.

FDA Adds Stronger Warnings to Fluoroquinolones By Robert Preidt                  HealthDay Reporter         WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- A powerful class of antibiotics will now come with stronger safety warnings about dangerous drops in blood sugar and neurological side effects that can include delirium and memory problems, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday.Called fluoroquinolones, these drugs include levofloxacin (Levaquin), ciprofloxacin (Cipro), ciprofloxacin extended-release tablets, moxifloxacin (Avelox), ofloxacin, gemifloxacin (Factive) and delafloxacin (Baxdela). There are more than 60 generic versions of fluoroquinolones."The use of

A company developing a one-dose pill to treat flu says the drug has been fast-tracked by the FDA.

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine say they've identified a "biomarker" that indicates a person's susceptibility to flu viruses.

The recommendation follows a review of existing data on the effectiveness of the flu shot -- compared with the nasal spray -- that was carried out by the AAP Board of Directors.

Fifteen years ago, researchers found that a flu virus in a horse infected a dog, leading to the first circulating flu viruses in dogs. Five years ago, researchers identified a bird-origin flu virus circulating in farm dogs in China.

In two surveys done four years apart, the number of Veterans Affairs hospitals mandating flu shots rose only slightly, from 1 percent in 2013 to 4 percent in 2017, researchers said.

The pig virus, known as Porcine deltacoronavirus, was first identified in China in 2012. It was found in pigs but it was not associated with disease.

In lab tests, this molecule blocked viruses that cause colds and prevented them from taking control of human cells.

Armpit thermometers led to a large outbreak of drug-resistant Candida auris fungus in the United Kingdom.