News Reports for June 28, 2012

Austria: Influenza hits Canberra (Australian Capital Territory)

Several people have been admitted to hospital as influenza hits Canberra workplaces, schools and nursing homes. (Snip) there had been 72 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza in the ACT since the beginning of the year. "More than half of those have been notified since the beginning of this month," he said.

Dr Kelly said some patients had been admitted to hospital and cases had been detected in two residential aged care homes.

He urged people identified as being at high-risk of complications from the flu to be vaccinated "That includes people over the age of 65, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people over 15, pregnant women and anyone over six months of age with an underlying medical condition that predisposes them to the risk of complications from influenza," Dr Kelly said. "That includes people with chronic heart and other chronic diseases."

Vaccination is free for people in identified at-risk groups but can also be accessed by other people who wish to reduce their risk of becoming ill with the flu.
(Snip)
"The swine flu strain from a couple of years ago - H1NI - seems to be decreasing as a proportion and another A-strain - the H3N2 strain at the moment at least seems to be increasing," Dr Kelly said. Continued: http://www.crookwellgazette.co...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 07:00:33 AM UTC

This is Australia....

just bad typing by me on the mispelling.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 07:04:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

India: Four more test H1N1 positive, 15 cases in June (Maharashtra)

MUMBAI: With the onset of the monsoon, cases of H1N1 infections are steadily rising in the city. On Wednesday, four more people tested positive for the virus, taking the count to 51 since April this year. Over 15 people have tested positive for H1N1 this June.

A five-year-old girl from Dadar and a seven-year-old boy from Sewri were among those who tested positive on Wednesday.

A 34-year-old woman from Parel and a 28-year-old man from Sewri also tested positive. (Snip) "The 28-year-old is undergoing treatment at a private hospital. Rest of the patients (Snip) have been put on Tamiflu." (Snip) http://timesofindia.indiatimes...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 08:08:07 AM UTC

Influenza: Five questions on H5N1

From: Nature International Weekly Journal of Science http://www.nature.com/news/inf...

(Note: Good article and I recommend reading it when you have time.)

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 08:18:24 AM UTC

New flu gene found hiding in plain sight, and affects severity of infections

I could write the entire genome of a flu virus in around 100 tweets. It is just 14,000 letters long; for comparison, our genome has over 3 billion letters. This tiny collection of genetic material is enough to kill millions of people. Even though it has been sequenced time and time again, there is still a lot we don't know about it.

A new study beautifully illustrates the depths of our ignorance. Brett Jagger and Paul Digard from the University of Edinburgh have discovered an entirely new flu gene, hiding in plain sight among the 12 we knew about. It's like someone took the text of Macbeth, put the spaces in different places, and got Hamlet.

This new gene, known as PA-X, affects how the virus's host responds to the virus. Oddly, it seems to reduce the severity of infections. "This is indeed an exciting finding in the flu field," says virologist Ron Fouchier. "How can we have missed it?" asks Wendy Barclay, a flu researcher from Imperial College London who has worked with Digard before. "It just emphasizes how compact these genomes are."

Most influenza viruses belong to the influenza A group - these are the ones behind all the big pandemics, the seasonal strains that sweep the world every year, and the mutant strains that have caused such a stir recently. Each influenza A virus is a shell containing eight strands of RNA, a genetic molecule related to DNA. But some of these strands encode multiple genes, each of which produces a different protein. Until recently, we thought that the eight strands contain 12 different genes, and the new study raises that number to 13. The influenza genome, it turns out, is absolutely packed with overlapping instructions.

Here's how it works. RNA is made from building blocks called nucleotides, denoted by the letters A, C, G and U. Every set of three letters corresponds to an amino acid, which string together to form proteins. For example, GCA equals alanine, while AGU equals serine. Using this code, you can build a protein from a sequence of RNA, by translating its letters into a chain of amino acids. But of course, it all depends on where you start. Continued: http://blogs.discovermagazine....

(Note: "This new gene, known as PA-X, affects how the virus's host responds to the virus. Oddly, it seems to reduce the severity of infections." That doesn't seem odd to me. Viruses are programmed to survive and can't do that if all hosts die out. I think this gene is a built in survival mechanism to ensure there will always be host left to infect. JMO)  

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 21:09:54 PM UTC

Australia: Expert issues flu alert after victims hospitalised

Several people have been admitted to hospital as influenza hits Canberra workplaces, schools and nursing homes. (Snip) 72 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza in the ACT since the beginning of the year.

''More than half of those have been notified since the beginning of this month,'' (Snip) http://www.canberratimes.com.a...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Thu Jun 28, 2012 at 21:15:54 PM UTC

Please post new news stories to...

News Reports for June 29, 2012

Thank you!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Jun 29, 2012 at 06:27:34 AM UTC