Pandemic preparedness

Flu vaccine. There is a time.

revere | June 19, 2006

One of the distinctive things about influenza outbreaks in humans is its seasonality. That's why we call "ordinary" influenza seasonal influenza. Interestingly, we don't know what controls that seasonality, nor do we know if it also is a factor in pandemic strains. Pandemic strains are different in many ways and perhaps seasonality will be one of them. The second wave of 1918 started in August. The question is even muddier when it comes to avian influenza, as WHO is acknowledging. "We do know that the bird flu virus can survive for a time in colder weather, but it's really not clear at this…

Measles and bird flu

revere | June 12, 2006

Computer programmers are associated with computer viruses, not human viruses. But at the end of April an Indian computer programmer landed in Boston incubating measles virus. He had been hired by a business investment firm whose offices were on the 18th floor of a Boston skyscraper, the John Hancock Tower. May 5 he developed fever, cough and then a rash and became the index case in what is so far an 11 person outbreak, the largest number of measles cases in the city since 1989. (Boston Globe) The outbreak is of special interest for what it says for the spread of infectious disease in the era…