Influenza

An analysis of influenza patterns show that warmer-than-average winters coincided with more severe outbreaks, bad news for a warming world

Health officials say the outbreak has not yet peaked so getting vaccinated even now will still help

Public health officials urge U.S. families to get vaccinated in preparation for what, they warn, could be a particularly bad year

Despite government recommendations, there is little evidence that flu vaccines help individuals older than 65 or younger than two

A new subtype diverged from known influenza viruses long ago and does not seem to pose an immediate health threat

Are fears of human-to-human transmitted bird flu overblown or does it make sense, based on current fatality rates, to anticipate a worst-case scenario for a future outbreak of H5N1 flu?

More than a third of U.S. health care employees were not vaccinated last flu season. Research shows that the unvaccinated staff have a decent chance of getting sick--and passing that infection on to at-risk patients

New animations show how various strains of the flu travel across the U.S. to mingle in the major hog production centers in the Midwest, suggesting strategies to monitor for future pandemics

The influenza virus is hiding and changing in animal populations. Virologist Ab Osterhaus explains how that could make it more lethal and how we have to keep a constant eye on its development. Katherine Harmon reports

Predicting pandemics might still be impossible, but with millions of lives at stake, researchers are using the latest science and lessons from history to best prepare for the next big one

Journalist Helen Branswell discusses her January Scientific American article, "Flu Factories," about the attempts to monitor new strains of flu that can originate on pig farms and the difficulties of balancing economic and public health constituencies

The rapidly mutating strains of flu virus have so far thwarted efforts to develop a vaccine that could knock out all varieties with a single injection, but recent advances suggest a synthetic solution. The head of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's microbiology department explains