During an influenza pandemic, information about the industry and occupation (I&O) of persons likely to be infected with influenza virus is important to guide key policy decisions regarding vaccine prioritization and exposure-control measures. Health-care personnel (HCP) might have increased opportunity for exposure to influenza infection, and they have been prioritized for influenza vaccination...

On 1 January, following agitation by journalists, opposition politicians and medical experts alike, the UK government launched a nationwide influenza awareness campaign. As morbidity and mortality figures rose during December, especially for H1N1 swine flu, ministers abandoned their pleas that there was no need for such a campaign, which would normally have started three months earlier. Even wh...

BACKGROUND The 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine had lower uptake compared to seasonal influenza vaccine, and most studies examining uptake of H1N1 vaccine focused on hospital-based healthcare personnel (HCP). Determinants of H1N1 vaccine uptake among HCP in all work settings need to be identified so that interventions can be developed for use in encouraging uptake of future pandemic or emer...

BACKGROUND On the 30th September 2009, the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza vaccine was made available to adults and children aged 10 years and over, in Australia. Acceptance of a novel vaccine is influenced by perceptions of risk including risk of infection, risk of death or severe illness and risk of serious vaccine side-effects. We surveyed a sample of residents from Sydney, Australia to ascer...

In 2009, the world experienced the first influenza pandemic for thirty years. Identified in Mexico in March, the novel swine flu quickly spread across the globe and was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization at the end of April. In the UK, the epidemic differed from regular flu epidemics in that it occurred during the summer rather than the winter. Using a relativel...

BACKGROUND In April 2009, novel swine-origin influenza viruses (S-OIV) were identified in patients from Mexico and the United States. The viruses were genetically characterized as a novel influenza A (H1N1) strain originating in swine, and within a very short time the S-OIV strain spread across the globe via human-to-human contact. METHODOLOGY We conducted a comprehensive computational search...

The neuraminidase (NA) of influenza virus is the target of anti-flu drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir. Clinical practices showed that oseltamivir was effective to treat the 2009-H1N1 influenza but failed to the 2006-H5N1 avian influenza. To perform an in-depth analysis on such a drug-resistance problem, the 2009-H1N1-NA structure was developed. To compare it with the crystal 2006-H5N1-NA structur...

In 1976, 2 recruits at Fort Dix, New Jersey, had an influenza like illness. Isolates of virus taken from them included A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1n1), a strain similar to the virus believed at the time to be the cause of the 1918 pandemic, commonly known as swine flu. Serologic studies at Fort Dix suggested that >200 soldiers had been infected and that person-to-person transmission had occurred. We r...

Swine influenza virus isolates originating from outbreaks in Sweden from 1983, 2002 and 2009 were subjected to nucleotide sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. The aim of the studies was to obtain an overview on their potential relatedness as well as to provide data for broader scale studies on swine influenza epidemiology. Nonetheless, analyzing archive isolates is justified by the efforts dir...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of the intranasal, live-attenuated, trivalent cold-adapted influenza virus vaccine (CAIV-T) against influenza A(H3N2) and B infections in healthy persons is established, but its effectiveness against natural influenza A(H1N1) infection is unknown. OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of CAIV-T in healthy children during the 2000-2001 influenza A(H1N1) and B epidemic. ...