QDIS Blog

A recent article from Nature caught my eye concerning bird flu.

news @ nature.com - Controlling immune response may cut bird flu death rate - Study shows how H5N1 ravages the body.:

It seems the H5N1 replicates at a much greater rate than typical flu viruses and it basically causes the body to over-respond creating what is referred to as a cytokine storm. This eventually leads to organ failure particularly the lungs.

One of two things could be happening. First the body over reacts simply because the virus replicates so rapidly. The second could b that the virus produces a compound that over stimulates the immune response. This second explanation may be a reason as to why Tamiflu which inhibits viral replication, has not proven very useful. Another reason could be that the proper dose of Tamiflu for fighting avian flu has not yet been determined.

Technorati Tags: avian flu, bird flu, H5N1

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The FDA has given the okay to Iomai to test their flu vaccine in a patch based delivery system. They will compare it against the standard flu shot.

United Press International - Health Business - FDA OK’s trial of Iomai’s flu vaccine patch:

I find this an interesting delivery system for vaccines and this could be a major step forward. THeir are some people I know who don’t get the flu shot each year mainly because they have a fear of needles. I do know though that getting any sort of medicine across the skin barrier is difficult and one of the primary reason there aren’t more drugs delivered by patches.

Technorati Tags: flu, Iomai, vaccine

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A recent article from NY Times talks about how airlines are responsible for spreading SARS.

Speed of the Spread of Flu Is Linked to Airline Travel - New York Times

Most people I think came to this conclusions just based on what was reported in the main stream media.

Here’s the actual article:

PLoS Medicine: Empirical Evidence for the Effect of Airline Travel on Inter-Regional Influenza Spread in the United States

They also used the flight ban after Sept. 11, 2001 to see what affect that had on the spread of flu. Flu that winter was delayed and also prolonged and this is likely due to the changes in airline travel.

Here is the conclusion:

Although the mechanisms driving the seasonality of influenza epidemics are still not well understood, our findings do suggest that fluctuations in airline travel have an impact on large-scale spread of influenza. At the regional level, our results suggest an important influence of international air travel on influenza timing as well as an influence of domestic air travel on influenza spread in the US. However, for the global influenza pandemic widely believed to be inevitable, the efficacy of travel advisories, flight restrictions, or even complete flight bans as a control measure is still uncertain.

Other Resources

PLoS Medicine: SARS: Systematic Review of Treatment Effects:

Technorati Tags: air travel, flu, SARS

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