influenza

New flu detection test can be carried in a first aid kit

After the H1N1 "swine flu" virus jumped from pigs to human in 2009, more than 18,000 people died and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called it the first global pandemic in more than 40 years.

Today, biomedical engineers out of Brown University and Memorial Hospital in Rhode Island hope that their prototype flu detector biochip will help contain the next major flu outbreak by enabling the quickest, most accurate, and most affordable diagnosis possible.

The team's assay, which they call SMART (short for A Simple Method for Amplifying RNA Targets), consists of a series … Read more

'Barcoding' viruses could help detect mutated strains

The influenza A virus ranks among our planet's least-controlled pathogens, resulting in seasonal epidemics and even global pandemics. The H1N1 virus of 2009 -- a new type of influenza A virus -- caused the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But despite the fast and furious spread of H1N1 that year, it turned out to affect the lungs much in the way the seasonal flu does. Using a new type of test developed at the University of Leeds "might have been a way to identify how lethal … Read more

Text messages prompting people to get their flu shot

Only about half of kids ages 6 months to 17 years received the flu shot in the 2010-2011 season, which may be one reason influenza remains one of the most common causes of hospitalization among kids today, according to a study in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

So researchers from Columbia University and beyond tested an intervention program on a randomized control trial of more than 9,000 kids of that same age range at four community-based clinics in the United States, where more than 7,500 kids had not received the vaccine … Read more

Microfluidic chip to quickly diagnose the flu

During the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, which spread across more than 200 countries and killed more than 18,000 people, it became clear that flu diagnosis was often taking too long and resulting in frequent false negatives.

Today, researchers from Boston University, Harvard, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are reporting in the journal PLoS ONE that they have built a microfluidic chip that rivals in accuracy the gold-standard diagnostic test known as RT-PCR but is faster, cheaper, and disposable.

For their four-year study, which involved 146 patients with flu-like symptoms and was funded by the National Institutes … Read more

Computer model predicts severity of flu outbreaks

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health said yesterday they have come up with a computer model they say can predict infection rates of the influenza virus, and it could help people gird up for flu season in the future.

It has been well established in the scientific community that the extent to which a flu virus spreads in a given year is related to how much it has mutated from previous seasons. But these scientists set out to translate that knowledge into something more concrete.

The group looked specifically at data on virus genetics and infection rates from 16 … Read more

Tracking the flu by tracking the tweets

Let's face it: the typical tweet in the Twitosphere (if you need help with the vernacular, consult the Twictionary) is about as revelatory as the words going into the cell phone of the girl sitting behind me on the bus last night. The vast majority are meaningless to strangers--and probably even to close friends.

But the sheer volume of Twitter activity (the site is "over capacity" as I type this) turns otherwise banal tweets into telling trends, when scrutinized in the aggregate, and health trends are no exception.

"A microblogging service such as Twitter is a … Read more

Google launches Maps tool for finding flu vaccine

Google on Tuesday announced a new Maps feature to help make it easier to determine the availability of flu vaccine.

According to the company, users can now visit Google's new flu shot Google Maps page to find out if there is any vaccine available in their area. It partnered with "the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, their Flu.gov collaborators, and the American Lung Association on the flu shot finder," the company wrote in a blog post.

On the flu shot page, users can input their Zip code or town and find all the … Read more

Online resources for tracking swine flu

The spread of a new swine flu is quickly becoming a worldwide concern. The Web, of course, is an ideal resource for learning more about it, but there is plenty of misinformation as well. Here are the sites we recommend turning to.

Research sites

The Centers for Disease Control : The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is the best swine flu resource on the Web. You can learn about the outbreak of the flu and find key facts that help you understand it. There's a video podcast by a physician, giving you in-depth information about the flu's signs and symptoms, how it's transmitted, and steps you can take to protect yourself. This should be your first stop.

Flu Wiki : The Flu Wiki from Wikia helps you learn about influenza. From its symptoms to its varied strains, the site provides a wealth of knowledge on just about any flu topic. It also has a swine flu wiki page that, while helpful, could be more in-depth. But since the swine flu is somewhat similar to other influenza strains, the Flu Wiki will still come in handy.

Google Maps swine flu outbreak map: The swine flu outbreak map helps you find every known instance of the swine flu around the world. The map also provides information on the current state of the ill person. It will be continuously updated, so you can track it each day. But like following minute-by-minute stock market fluctuations, we don't recommend dwelling on this site. … Read more

Gaming the next pandemic

As anybody who's watched the movie Outbreak knows, when it comes to raging epidemics, the military will get involved at some point, the question is: in what way (PDF)?

To answer that, the Department of Defense (DOD) has commissioned the development of a simulation-based planning and training software application--a game, in other words, albeit a "serious" one--to help it to prepare for the next influenza pandemic.

The game will allow health care professionals and the military to recognize early signs of an outbreak, practice response tactics, and plot "local mitigation strategies" to limit the spread … Read more