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The flu is now considered “widespread” across Minnesota (and elsewhere). In other words, the flu virus has been reported at hospitals all over the state. Many hospitals are placing restrictions on visitors to stop the spread. The numbers are why the Minnesota Department of Health has declared influenza and respiratory illness widespread, which means hospitals will be placing restrictions on visitors to protect patients and staff. (Emphasis mine)

[Follow the link and scroll down for the following text and the map.] ILINet State Activity Indicator Map: Data collected in ILINet are used to produce a measure of ILI activity* by state. Activity levels are based on the percent of outpatient visits in a state due to ILI and are compared to the average percent of ILI visits that occur during weeks with little or no influenza virus circulation. Activity levels range from minimal, which would correspond to ILI activity from outpatient clinics being below, or only slightly above, the average, to high, which would correspond to ILI activity...

One Sunday in November 20-year-old Alani Murrieta of Phoenix began to feel sick and left work early. She had no preexisting medical conditions but her health declined at a frighteningly rapid pace, as detailed by her family and friends in local media and on BuzzFeed News. The next day she went to an urgent care clinic, where she was diagnosed with the flu and prescribed the antiviral medication Tamiflu. But by Tuesday morning she was having trouble breathing and was spitting up blood. Her family took her to the hospital, where x-rays revealed pneumonia: inflammation in the lungs that can...

A Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report Prepared by the Influenza Division Weekly Influenza Activity Estimates Reported by State and Territorial Epidemiologists*

he mucus of a rare frog that lurks in the South Indian jungle could provide the basis of a powerful new class of drugs to combat influenza, scientists have said. The bright orange tennis ball-sized Hydrophylax bahuvistara was found to contain “host defence peptides” that proved able to destroy numerous strains of human flu, whilst protecting normal cells. Researchers are excited because the peptide showed it could bind to a protein that is identical across “dozens” of strains of the disease, increasing its potential potency as a drug. People would be advised to treat the Keralan amphibian with caution, however,...

By The Week Staff August 30, 2014Think Ebola is alarming? Scientists expect a much deadlier virus to emerge in the not-distant future. How likely is a pandemic? Epidemiologists believe we're statistically overdue for a global viral outbreak, which occurs every generation or so. This year's Ebola crisis is probably just a dress rehearsal: Though the virus has killed at least 1,420 people in Africa in the last five months, Ebola is transmitted only through intimate contact with bodily fluids and doesn't have the global reach of a true pandemic, such as Spanish influenza in 1918. Humanity had no prior exposure...

SYNOPSIS The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered...

Many urbanites use doggie day cares while they work long hours. Paying others to exercise their pets, owners can forgo long walks and enjoy guilt-free pooch snuggling in the evenings. While usually a healthy experience for the dogs, the day care environment, with dozens of pets mingling, contributed to an epidemic of dog flu in Chicago that is spreading in the Midwest, experts say.

(English translation) Given the alarming number of persons infected with the disease, Health Secretary Ana Rius declared yesterday that Puerto Rico is facing an influenza epidemic. The decree was released given the number of cases reported in January which totaled 3,124, a figure very close to the one reported for the last six months of 2014. Most of the hospitalized patients have been pregnant women, children under 19, and elderly, [which are] the highest-risk populations. In fact, an 85-year-old woman already died of the disease. Along with the declaration, the Secretary signed an administrative order for health-insurance companies to cover...

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

<p>A deadly influenza strain has the U.S. in the grip of what could develop into a "severe" flu season, with widespread cases already reported in 36 states, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert said Tuesday.</p> <p>The H3N2 strain, the most common flu virus this season, began mutating shortly after U.S. health experts created this year's vaccine -- rendering it less effective compared to past flu vaccines, Dr. Michael Jhung, a medical officer with the CDC's influenza division, told FoxNews.com.</p>

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,...

I have a joke about Ebola, but you probably won’t get it. Seriously though, everyone and their dog is freaking out about Ebola reaching the U.S. I get it. I really truly do. Any deadly disease is scary, but Ebola is super-duper scary. Anything that causes 70 percent of people who catch it to die counts as super-duper scary in my book. Thing is, you won’t catch it. I won’t catch it. According to NPR, Ebola isn’t contagious until after symptoms are present. On top of that, it is only spread through bodily fluids like blood, vomit and other things...

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...

ST. LOUIS • On Oct. 5, 1918, the city health department issued this warning: “Avoid persons with colds.” Dr. Max C. Starkloff, health commissioner, knew that wasn’t nearly enough. Two days later, with Mayor Henry Kiel’s strong backing, he issued an emergency order closing schools, theaters, pool halls, playgrounds and other public places. The strategy was known as “social distancing,” and the motive was to fight the Spanish flu that was sweeping the world. The misnamed influenza would kill many more people than the ghastly meat-grinder known as the Great War. The order was extreme, but it worked — St....

A panel of infectious diseases experts this morning expressed far more grave concerns for Americans about the risks of flu and enterovirus D68 than for Ebola virus disease. That’s noteworthy because the group included Bruce Ribner, MD, MPH, the Emory University Hospital doctor who led the team that successfully treated two Ebola-infected medical missionaries, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol. Infectious diseases caregivers and public health professionals are gathered in Philadelphia through the weekend for the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), more commonly known as IDWeek 2014. (You can also follow attendees in real-time on...

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.

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...

Deadly Flu Outbreak: Is History Repeating Itself?An out-of-control outbreak of influenza which has killed as many as 700 people and felled almost 23,000 victims is ravaging Madagascar and health authorities fear that if the disease is not confined to the huge island it could spread around the world. Madagascar which is larger than France and has a population of 16 million people is located off southeast Africa. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have said that samples taken from victims of the illness have shown it to be Type A influenza, a strain of flu believed to have devastated the world...

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...