Influenza

Influenza poses significant health and socioeconomic threats despite cases drastically dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A chatbot-delivered, personally tailored intervention was associated with increased uptake in seasonal influenza vaccinations among older adults, a study in JAMA Network Open showed.

Local influenza spread was associated with temporary increased CV risk, but flu vaccine dose — high or standard — did not prevent hospitalization for cardiopulmonary events or all-cause death in high-risk patients, researchers reported.

The incidence of new-onset persistent hypertension is greater in patients with COVID-19 than in those with influenza, researchers reported in Hypertension.

Experts said clinicians should consider masking during periods of elevated respiratory viral activity after a study linked pandemic prevention measures to decreases in nosocomial COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses.

This fall, older adults in the United States will have the opportunity to receive three vaccines to against fall and winter season respiratory illnesses — COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. 

Global data indicate that some common influenza symptoms increase with age as others decrease, researchers found.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced this week that it has started enrolling participants in a phase 1 trial testing an experimental universal influenza vaccine that uses a messenger RNA platform.

All immunocompromised adults should receive the high-dose formulation of the influenza vaccine, according to a presenter at the Biologic Therapies Summit.

SAN DIEGO — Some of the biggest developments in infectious diseases in the past 12 months involve a promising treatment for COVID-19, a universal influenza mRNA vaccine candidate and the emergence of vaccine-derived polio, a speaker said.