
Resent Post
Is the Flu Vaccine in Your Fall Plans?
Is the Flu Vaccine in Your Fall Plans?
Since April 2009 the world has been suffering from a pandemia that is, in a way, not a totally new one. “Although this influenza strain surprised us in a couple of ways…… the fact that a novel strain has arisen and is being transmitted from human to human is not a surprise,” says Dr. Michael Pichichero, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases from Rochester, NY, in the latest publication of Pediatric News. Dr. Pichichero goes on to describe three other novel viral species causing disease in humans. Why the uproar with the new Influenza A (H1N1)?
We don’t know a lot about the new virus, but we do have some historic information about its close relative, the influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemia that killed near 50 million people. The virus we see today has genetic information from the virus that affects pigs, which is why this pandemia was referred to as “swine flu” initially, and also from bird and human strains.