For the most part, our strategy for preparing for pandemic flu focuses on the development of vaccines.
What we need are oral drugs that can combat a wide range of different pandemic flu strains.
And two companies, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Sirna Therapeutics, are trying to develop RNAi as a drug against diseases like macular degeneration, cystic fibrosis and pandemic flu.
"H1N1 flu has been around both this winter and last winter following the pandemic flu previously so it's not a particularly unusual thing to have happened, " he said.
For years the UK's health professionals have been preparing for a pandemic flu outbreak that they fear could lead to huge numbers of deaths and seriously disrupt the functioning of the nation.
The Chief Medical Officer said antimicrobial resistance would be put on the government's national risk register of civil emergencies - which provides guidance on potential threats such as terrorist attacks, pandemic flu and major flooding.
"The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for U.S.-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu, " HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement last week.
Most flu and public health experts consider them to have been overly alarmist, and that their decision during the week of April 27 to raise the pandemic flu threat to the penultimate Level 5, "Pandemic Imminent, " far outpaces the data that have accumulated and is therefore unwarranted.
We welcomed the United States announcement of the Innovation in Science through Partners and Regional Engagement (INSPIRE) initiative, which will foster cooperation between U.S. and ASEAN scientists in such areas as pandemic flu monitoring and prevention, development of low-cost vaccines, drug treatment monitoring, health innovation, and disease research.
WHITEHOUSE: Joint Statement of the 4th ASEAN-U.S. Leaders' Meeting
He includes the 1918 flu pandemic as an analogy to possible bird flu and concludes it would have virtually no impact.
Medical historians believe that a large proportion of those who died of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 were not killed by the flu virus, but by secondary bacterial pneumonia, which was difficult to treat before the introduction of antibiotics.
Up until a couple of years ago there were no vaccines routinely offered to pregnant women in the UK. The swine flu pandemic changed that, and now all pregnant women are offered a seasonal flu jab.
Researchers at the University of Iowa, studying the 2009 swine flu pandemic, compared fluctuations in the use of certain phrases on Twitter with flu cases reported through the US Centre for Disease Control, which has its own sophisticated flu surveillance system.
After Spanish flu in 1918 and Asian flu in 1957, there was another pandemic, Hong Kong flu (H3N2) in 1968.
Last year, all children between six months and five years were offered the pandemic H1N1 swine flu jab.
But worries persist that Yudhoyono's nation is a soft underbelly in resistance to a possible avian-flu pandemic emanating from Asia.
Reserves are also retained to pay for for unexpected events such as a flu pandemic or a foot and mouth outbreak.
's profits and its sales drop, the swine flu pandemic couldn't have come at a better time for the drug company.
By contrast, the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million had an incubation period of two days (and an R of 2).
Work began on a big project to understand potential flu pandemic threats.
The strain raised fears of a global flu pandemic, but was contained after a mass slaughter of chickens thought to be carrying the virus.
Economic issues are now as contagious as a flu pandemic, which is perhaps why the meltdown of 2008 seemed more severe and dangerous than its predecessors.
Yet in the event of a flu pandemic they are the only weapon available for treating patients in the months before a vaccine can be developed.
Spurring more parents to seek vaccinations in recent years was the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 and the rush it prompted for scarce vaccine, some pediatricians say.
If the swine flu pandemic of 2009-10 was part of this pattern, the crossing of viral strains must have had something to do with birds as well as pigs.
During the flu pandemic of 1918, cases began in the spring and then faded away during the summer, only to come back with a vengeance in the fall and winter.
Plans were hatched for how best to respond to the threat from a virus that is infecting poultry around the world and might trigger a deadly pandemic of human flu.
More likely the action will be in South and East Asia, especially if a flu pandemic can be avoided and resource issues can be alleviated with bountiful Russia as part of the mix.
"I think the world is infinitely better prepared than it was 90 years ago, " said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl, referring to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed as many as 20 million people.
Following his guidelines, many nations are making large quantities of what they believe will be useful vaccines in the hope of defeating a possible pandemic of bird flu, should the virus spread from Asia.
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