Like clockwork, the influenza virus rears its ugly head every winter and makes our lives miserable. But the flu isn’t the only germ that likes a particular time of year, according to a new paper published this week in PLOS Pathogens. Seemingly every infectious disease, including polio, gonorrhea, and even HIV, is…
Last year’s flu season was one of the worst ones we’ve seen in decades, with nearly 80,000 flu-related deaths and the highest hospitalization rate for the virus in modern history. But new estimations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are giving us an even clearer idea of just how bad last…
The flu vaccine remains the best proactive way to protect yourself and your loved ones from the influenza virus. But this upcoming flu season, there’ll be a new weapon available against the nasty disease. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration announced their approval of a new antiviral treatment for the flu,…
While the flu is no picnic for anyone, it can be especially risky and sometimes deadly for young children. But a new survey suggests many people still avoid the flu shot because of misconceptions about how it works, including that the vaccine actually can give you the flu.
Whether you live in a huge metropolis or quiet small town, you’re not safe from the flu and you need to get your damn flu shot. But different U.S. cities do experience the flu differently. In the wake of the most devastating flu season seen in decades this past winter, a new study seems to show how and why the…
This past winter’s flu season was quickly recognized as one of the worst to come along in a long time. But new data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention highlights just destructive it was in the United States. According to new data, there were 80,000 flu-related deaths last season, the single highest…
Earlier today, a flight that had left Dubai in the United Arab Emirates landed at JFK International Airport in New York with 549 passengers and crew on board—and was promptly quarantined due to a mysterious ailment spreading throughout the cabin. In the neighborhood of 100 people on board showed symptoms including…
New research identifies the various ways in which we’re most likely to come into contact with communicable diseases at airports. Turns out that toilets are surprisingly clean, but the same cannot be said for those plastic bins used at airport security, which are absolutely covered in viruses.
Hey, don’t freak out or anything, but Bill Gates thinks there is a new flu epidemic lurking just around the corner and we are woefully unprepared for it. The billionaire philanthropist warned Friday that there is a “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.”
If you’ve shirked your societal responsibility by not getting vaccinated against influenza and managed to avoid getting sick, congrats! You’re probably out of the woods now. The latest surveillance report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates this especially severe flu season is finally…
In a speech made to Congress Thursday, US Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb took stock of how his agency handled the ongoing, record-breaking flu season this winter, as well as discussed the future of flu vaccination in the US. Among other tidbits, Gottlieb made clear that it’s going to be a long while…
Finally—finally!—it looks like the U.S. has gotten through the worst of this winter’s record-breaking flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there’s still a bit longer to go before we can get the all-clear.
By the time everything’s said and done, this winter’s flu season may very well be the worst in several years, and by some metrics it may even surpass the 2009 pandemic. Some experts have blamed the intensity of this year’s flu in part on a particularly poor vaccine, which was mainly based on research in Australia,…
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the latest updates on how this winter’s flu season is continuing to shape up. And much like anything else these days, it’s a pile of gloom and doom.
As one of the worst flu seasons in years continues to sicken people across the U.S., one of its most striking aspects are the untimely deaths it’s caused: A 21-year-old bodybuilder; a 12-year-old boy; a 40-year-old marathoner. Infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised people are always at higher risk of dying from…
Hold onto your butts (and tissues), folks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a press conference held Friday, announced that the current flu season is still raging, with no signs of letting up yet. Not only that, but assuming things hold, the flu could cause more illness than it has in nearly a decade,…
It’s not bad enough that the flu virus is tearing the human species a new one this winter. No, it has to go after the only good thing left in our snot-ridden lives: The Dogs. But while the idea of deadly dog flu spreading like wildfire through our nation’s kennels and shelters, as recent headlines suggest, might tug…
In the face of the Purge prequel we’re living out right now, it should come as a tiny bit reassuring that not every federal agency has closed—at least not completely—during this government shutdown. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will keep fighting and tracking the flu virus, which is important,…
Aside from getting vaccinated (which everyone should), an important strategy to evading the flu is regularly washing your hands and avoiding contact with the sneezes, coughs, and snot of sick people. The logic behind this simple advice is that the influenza virus requires reasonably close contact with the fluids of a…
The flu tends to be the leaky basement pipe of disease: It’s easy enough to avoid doing something about it, right up until the point it completely bursts and ruins your month. But the flu is much more deadly than a flooded basement. Even at its weakest in recent years, the virus killed at least 12,000 Americans during…
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