influenza

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A Major Lesson from Ebola: Pandemics Are Strongly Driven by Inequality

After more than a year since the Ebola pandemic appeared in West Africa, Liberia – one of the worst hit countries – has been declared free of the virus. However, the initial global response was not encouraging. Despite having the knowledge and technology needed to contain the outbreak, help was initially sluggish and poorly effective. This situation illustrates one of the major lessons from the history of pandemics: that they are strongly influenced by health inequalities. Pandemics are epidemics that spread widely and cross borders. In many respects, the world is a safer place for those concerned about these emerging infectious diseases – advances in science, particularly molecular biology, information technology, and epidemiology give us unprecedented tools for understanding, tracking and managing emerging threats...

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CDC Official Protests Federal Medical Response Cuts

Diane Barnes | Nextgov.com | April 29, 2014

More than half a decade of reductions to spending on state and local public-health agencies has already been "extremely damaging" to capabilities across the country for responding to unconventional attacks and other disasters, Dr. Ali Khan, director of the Public Health Preparedness and Response Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Global Security Newswire in an interview. 

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Exclusive: Controversial US scientist Creates Deadly New Flu Strain For Pandemic Research

Steve Connor | The Independent | July 1, 2014

...Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has genetically manipulated the 2009 strain of pandemic flu in order for it to “escape” the control of the immune system’s neutralising antibodies, effectively making the human population defenceless against its reemergence...

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HealthMap Tracks Ebola’s Footprints Online, Preparing For The Next Big Outbreak

Nidhi Subbaraman | BetaBoston | October 6, 2014

Since March, a group of data-savvy epidemiologists at Boston Children’s Hospital have watched Ebola slowly spread through West Africa, ominously lighting up their dials first as a trickle, then a torrent of mentions on social media and online news reports.  The group, HealthMap, has been steadily ahead of the curve tracking this year’s outbreak. One day, they hope to be a step ahead of the next big disease...

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HLN Releases New Version of Open Source Immunization Forecaster

Press Release | HLN Consulting | August 2, 2017

HLN Consulting has released a new version of the award winning Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a service-oriented, standards-based immunization forecasting software system that evaluates a patient's immunization history and generates the appropriate immunization recommendations. ICE can be used in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems. The release includes changes to the rules for several vaccine series, including Polio, Meningococcal ACWY, and Influenza.

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HLN Releases v 1.9.1.0 of its Open Source Immunization Forecaster

Press Release | HLN Consulting | October 11, 2017

HLN Consulting has released a new version of the award winning Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a service-oriented, standards-based immunization forecasting software system that evaluates a patient's immunization history and generates the appropriate immunization recommendations. ICE can be used in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems...

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New Antibiotic Alternative Traps and Eats Bacterial Toxins

BEC Crew | Science Alert | November 6, 2014

Researches in Switzerland have come up with what could be a viable alternative to antibiotics - cell structures called liposomes that can bait, trap and neutralise deadly bacterial toxins. As much trouble as we seem to be in right now due to the creeping issue of antibiotic resistance, imagine what the world would've looked like if the first antibiotic - penicillin - wasn’t discovered almost 90 years ago. We owe a great deal to this fungi-derived wonder-drug, but our absolute reliance on it has now put us at risk...

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New Data Sources Fuel Understanding of Public Health Emergencies

Kathleen Hickey | GCN | September 20, 2016

Remember when Google search results were first used to predict the flu? Now, data from mobile phones, social media and even grocery scanners has been shown to be effective at identifying patterns in epidemics. Standard travel data collection methods, however, are limited and often provide outdated data. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are nearly ubiquitous, and can serve as a rich data resource. Call data, which automatically provides time and location details, can help in understanding human mobility...

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Scary Science, National Security, and Open-Source Research

Maggie Koerth-Baker | Boing Boing | January 13, 2012

I've been following the story about the scientists who have been working to figure out how H5N1 bird flu might become transmissible from human to human, the controversial research they used to study that question, and the federal recommendations that are now threatening to keep that research under wraps. Read More »