An outbreak of H7N9 avian (bird) flu was reported March 17 in Mississippi, USA. This variety of bird influenza has not been seen in the US since 2017. [1] According to the World Health Organization (WHO), humans who have gotten this virus in the past have become severely ill. Since 2013, 1568 people have been infected in China, with 616 of them dying of...
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Image by rawpixel.com It’s hard to see people in lab coats and say, “there goes a superhero.” But that is what I call the people who created the first vaccines for some extremely scary diseases. They took a perilous journey into unknown territory. In early days, before there was a clear understanding of germs and how they...
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When Heidi Larson worked for UNICEF as an anthropologist, much of her time was spent ferreting out the rumors that influence public opinion. In 2003, she went to Northern Nigeria where political and religious leaders had decided to stop supporting the vaccination of children against polio. They told parents that the vaccines were contaminated with...
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If you had the flu in 2017, you know what the influenza A H3N2 virus feels like. Australia had a bad round of H3N2 flu this year and often the Northern Hemisphere follows the same trend. What to do? Get the flu shot! So many people say that they get the flu shot but still get the flu. It is true that the vaccine has only a 40 to 60 percent effectiveness...
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