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Bird flu has been discovered in domestic birds in Benton County. The flu was found in a flock of about 150 birds, including domestic waterfowl with access to the outdoors. The virus has not been found in commercial poultry anywhere in Washington State or the United States. The Washington State Department of Agriculture says there is no immediate public health concern as the avian flu does not affect poultry meat or egg products, which remain safe to eat. However, as always, both wild and domestic poultry should be propertly cooked.

Hospitals and medical centers in western Colorado are limiting visitors because of a serious flu outbreak. ... The Veterans Affairs Medical Center's community living center still is not accepting visitors after 11 patients showed signs of having the flu. All of those patients will remain in isolation until two or three days after the last one recovers. The Centers for Disease Control said influenza has reached epidemic proportions. There have been 15 pediatric deaths nationwide

The CDC has today declared a national flu epidemic as virulent mutated versions of this years H3N2 virus sweep the country. Twenty-two states have reported a high number of flu cases, centered mainly around the Midwest and southeast of the country. Since the start of the flu season on October 1 and December 20, CDC figures show that 15 children have died from the virus and four in the week before Christmas. Six children in Tennessee have died this year from the flu according to the state's Department of Health and so far East Tennessee Children's hospital has seen 442...

I have had what seems like the flu or 2 or 3 weeks. It is a killer sore throat, moderate cough. But it is the sore throat that is killing me. Anyway, I just dragged myself out to Trader Joe's to buy something tempting and thought I would check out their tiny medicine section. I saw and bought Oscillococcinum which was hiding on the bottoms half. I know nothing about it except what I just learned in Wikipedia. Does anyone have experience with this stuff. The Amazon page with photos http://www.amazon.com/Boiron-Oscillococcinum-Flu-like-Symptoms-Pellets/dp/B0078W0QOI

A sampling of flu cases so far this season suggests the current flu vaccine may not be a good match for the most common seasonal flu strain currently circulating in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The U.S. health agency issued an advisory to doctors noting that flu virus samples the agency took from Oct. 1 through Nov. 22, showed that just under half were a good match for the current influenza A (H3N2) component contained in flu shots for the 2014-2015 season, suggesting the virus has drifted. According to the CDC,...

A Bristol mother is upset after she says her baby was denied a flu vaccination, even though the health department had flu shots on the shelf. When Annie Howard took her 14-month-old son to get his flu shot last week, she ran into what she calls a big problem. "My child is being denied the vaccination outright, denied the vaccination because we have insurance. That baffles me," she says. Howard's physician ran out of the preservative-free vaccination for infants, so she made an appointment at the Sullivan County Health Department. "I called asking them if they have the infant vaccination,...

Chinese researchers have discovered what they say is the first ‘virological penicillin’ – MIR2911, a molecule found naturally in a Chinese herb called honeysuckle. Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is a well-known Chinese herb. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it has been used to effectively treat influenza infection for centuries. Several previous studies have confirmed that the herb, usually consumed in the form of a tea, can suppress the replication of influenza virus. However, the active anti-viral components and the mechanism by which they block viral replication have remained unclear. Now, a team of researchers headed by Dr Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanjing University...

Researchers have found a deadly strain of the avian influenza virus that has been sweeping through harbor seals may be able to spread to humans. That's according to a study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. The study, led by investigators from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, details how an avian H3N8 virus strain that had killed more than 160 seals along the New England coast back in 2011 boasted specific characteristics that allowed it to be easily spread through respiratory droplets and made it a potential threat for human infection.

October 1, 2014Erin Brodwin This flu season is already shaping up to be worse than the last. Because flu season occurs in different time periods around the world, health experts track outbreaks of the virus globally to try and predict how the illness will affect each country before anyone there actually gets sick. Predicting how bad a particular flu season will be is a tough call. But in many years, flu outbreaks in the southern hemisphere can help foretell the virus' severity in the US. A group of scientists organized by the WHO called the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response...

SHELBY COUNTY, TN - (WMC) - With concerns over the spreading Enterovirus, Shelby County health leaders are also preparing for a possible outbreak of the flu. October is about the time of year that doctors start seeing more flu cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is why the emergency room at Regional Medical Center and more than a dozen Mid-South hospitals will be packed with fake patients on Wednesday. High school and medical reserve corps volunteers will be transported in masses to at least 18 Mid-South hospitals, all with fake flu symptoms. The Shelby County Health Department...

Children across the country being hospitalized with the 'open border flu' The rarely-seen Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), which has been sending children to emergency rooms in several mid-western states, has now made its way to the East Coast, as confirmed cases in Connecticut and New York have been reported in the last few days. Though the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has yet to make it official, several other states along the eastern seaboard are reporting outbreaks of the virus as well.

Reference article about fomites and spread of viruses in offic enclosed environments. Long technical article. Pertains to enteric and Norovirus among others. Short version via MailOnline available here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2748351/Why-really-need-wash-hands-work-Infections-spread-office-door-handle-half-workforce-just-two-HOURS.html (Snip) Study found between 40 and 60 per cent of office contaminated in two hours Pushing buttons in lifts and touching phones spread infection quickest  Disinfectant wipes and regularly washing hands is best way to kill germs   Infections can spread from an office door handle to half the workforce in just two hours, new research has found.  Using tracer viruses, a study found as much as 60 per cent of...

A US government laboratory mistakenly mixed a common flu strain with a dangerous and deadly type of bird flu and shipped it to another lab, authorities said Friday. The latest news followed admissions of mishandled anthrax and forgotten smallpox vials at separate US government labs, and raised new concerns about the safety of dangerous agents which could be used as bioterror weapons. No one was endangered by the mixed flu strain, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who nevertheless said he was "astonished" that protocols could have been violated in that way. "Everything we have looked...

After back-to-back potentially serious laboratory accidents, federal health officials announced on Friday that they had closed the flu and anthrax laboratories of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and have halted shipments of all infectious agents from the agency’s highest-security labs. The accidents, and the C.D.C.'s emphatic response to them, could have important implications for other laboratories around the world engaged in research into dangerous viruses and bacteria. If the C.D.C — which the agency’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, called “the reference laboratory to the world” — had multiple accidents that could have, in theory, killed not just laboratory...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it had uncovered a new safety breach at its bioterror research laboratories involving dangerous avian flu, just as it was investigating the failures behind the potential exposure of researchers to live anthrax bacteria. In its first findings from an internal probe into the anthrax incident last month, the CDC said multiple failures by individual scientists and a lack of agency-wide safety policies had led to the potential exposure of more than 80 lab workers to the dangerous bacteria at its campus in Atlanta.

Flu experts have made a mutant version of the 1918 “Spanish flu” virus that killed tens of millions of people, sparking a new debate over whether such work is too dangerous. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin says the experiments are important for helping scientists understand how new pandemics start, and for designing better flu vaccines.

The next time you feel a sneeze coming on, raise your elbow to cover up that multiphase turbulent buoyant cloud you’re about to expel. That’s right: A novel study by MIT researchers shows that coughs and sneezes have associated gas clouds that keep their potentially infectious droplets aloft over much greater distances than previously realized. “When you cough or sneeze, you see the droplets, or feel them if someone sneezes on you,” says John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, and co-author of a new paper on the subject. “But you don’t see the cloud, the invisible gas...

People aged 18 to 64 represent 61 percent of all flu hospitalizations this flu season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This age group accounted for only about 35 percent of flu-related hospitalizations the last three seasons, officials said at a CDC news conference. "We think one of the reasons flu is hitting younger adults hard is that such a low proportion get a flu shot, even those with underlying conditions like asthma, COPD, and diabetes," said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden at the news conference. "The bottom line is, influenza can make anyone very sick,...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — In an effort to help stop the spread of Southern California’s flu epidemic, one local hospital is asking all visitors to wear surgical masks while in the building. The effects of the flu on the Southland appear to be worsening each day, with nearly 100 confirmed influenza-related deaths, and dozens more expected by the end of the week. By this time exactly one year ago, the number of confirmed flu-related deaths was nine. In hopes of limiting the spread of the flu, Cedars Sinai Medical Center is handing out surgical masks to all visitors, whether symptoms...

In previous years, the percentage of obese patients hospitalized for flu was in the 20-30 percent range, according to health authorities. Being overweight is a risk factor for having a less efficient immune system, which can make people vulnerable to infection. ... Most of the cases in the U.S. are the H1N1 flu strain, which caused a global pandemic during the 2009-2010 flu season.