Influenza News

Although the CDC stresses the importance of vaccinating against influenza, only 38.6% of the United States population aged older than 6 months received the vaccine by early November 2017, according to the agency.

The worst influenza season in years has gripped much of the United States, leading to the highest rate of influenza-related hospitalizations in recent history, including for children, and underlining concerns about the seasonal vaccine.

Patients aged younger than 18 years who took oseltamivir were not at higher risk for suicide despite packaging indicating so, according to findings recently published in Annals of Family Medicine.

The 2017-2018 influenza season has been one of the most severe in recent years in North America, causing a disease burden throughout the United States comparable to that of the 2009 influenza pandemic.

The FDA is warning consumers to avoid unapproved products that marketers claim will cure or prevent influenza. Agency officials acknowledged that this influenza season has been especially severe and vaccine efficacy is low, perhaps making fake influenza cure claims more tempting.

A particularly severe influenza season in the United States continued to lose momentum entering March, with illnesses declining for a third straight week. But the rate of cumulative hospitalizations due to influenza reached the highest rate since at least 2010 and pediatric deaths attributed to influenza surpassed 100, according to CDC data.

Officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases published a roadmap for developing a universal influenza vaccine that protects not only against seasonal influenza but also virus strains that can cause pandemics.

The geographic spread of influenza may be accurately predicted using a model that incorporates data on influenza-like illness, lab-confirmed cases and travel habits of people within a local area.

Pandemic influenza vaccination is not associated with an increased risk of epilepsy in children, according to an analysis conducted on data collected during an H1N1 pandemic in Norway.

Influenza illness declined for a second straight week in the United States, a good sign that the country has passed the peak of a record-setting influenza season.