Word: influenza
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Panthera project presents an opportunity to explore another consequence of the increasing proximity of animals and people: zoonotic diseases, which can pass back and forth between wildlife and human beings. Several major human diseases have originated in animals, including Ebola (which began among primates in Africa) and avian influenza (which started in wild and domestic birds in Southeast Asia, but has also infected big cats...
First, the good news: As flu seasons go, this one isn't bad--at least as far as the overall numbers are concerned. This season, 11,000 cases of influenza have been confirmed in the U.S., on a par with the caseload at this time for the past few years. The vaccine, designed to protect against the three flu strains that researchers predicted would cause the most illness this season, seems to be a pretty good match for what ended up being the most common strain. And there's enough vaccine to go around...
...good news: you can never be complacent about a virus as fond of mutating as influenza is. We're always just a few random genetic shifts away from a possible pandemic. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year documented for the first time that one of the many viral components that make up a common flu strain, known as H1--which also happens to be a descendant of the same virus that fueled the pandemic of 1918--was resistant to the popular antiviral drug oseltamivir, a.k.a. Tamiflu. In the flu season--October...
...them throughout the season from doctors treating infected patients. "This is certainly far and away better than the system that existed before, where we weren't doing real-time surveillance to see what was changing, such as resistance," says Nancy Cox, director of the WHO-CDC Collaborating Center for Influenza in Atlanta...
...soldiers or doctors. Nor can they attend university in Arakan's capital, Sittwe, where communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims flared eight years ago. The villagers' tone when describing their plight was matter-of-fact, as if they were complaining of a rainstorm or a bad case of influenza. To marry, some Rohingya must sign a document promising not to bear more than two children - a regulation that presumably ensures the number of Muslim inhabitants of Arakan doesn't mushroom faster than the Buddhist population. Burmese prejudice against the Rohingya is as casual as it is cruel. When international indignation...