Word: viruses
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Since the new flu virus was officially declared a pandemic on June 11, the disease has spread faster in six weeks than past pandemics had spread in six months. Virtually every nation in the world has been infected, with the U.S. alone - which has 263 confirmed deaths, more than any other country - estimated to have logged more than 1 million cases. Although the good news is that most H1N1/09 illnesses have been extremely mild, the rapidity of its spread - and the fact that young people seem to be especially vulnerable - still worries global health officials. "We don't know...
When the World Health Organization announced on July 16 that it would stop issuing global counts of confirmed cases of the H1N1/09 virus (the new WHO-approved name differentiates the virus from older versions of H1N1), it wasn't because the disease had burned out. Far from...
...Northern Hemisphere's flu season returns with a vengeance. (Southern Hemisphere nations are currently in the early weeks of their flu season, and H1N1/09 has caused real trouble in Argentina, which has more than 130 confirmed deaths - second only to the U.S.) There is always a chance that the virus could become more virulent when it returns in the fall - just as the deadly 1918 pandemic did. Key to the world's defense against the flu will be an effective vaccine, and vaccine companies have been gearing up to produce hundreds of millions of doses. Production is already under...
...biggest question will be what to do about schools. Because the virus has struck the young at such unusually high levels - some 60% of the world's confirmed cases have occurred in people age 18 or younger - schools have become a major locus of infection. Outbreaks incubate among children in schools, then spread to the community when those kids go home. A study in the journal Lancet found that closing schools as a preventive measure in the early stages of a pandemic could sharply cut the number of cases initially, which would reduce the later surges of infections that...
...simple fact that flu cases are still being recorded in the U.S. this summer, during a time when the virus should be virtually dormant, is a sign that things will get worse once the weather cools. The question is whether or not we'll be ready. "We're taking this virus very seriously, and I think it's important for the public to be thinking ahead," says Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "This virus is not going away...