Influenzanet is a system to monitor the activity of influenza-like-illness (ILI) with the aid of volunteers via the internet. It has been operational in The Netherlands and Belgium (since 2003), Portugal (since 2005), Italy (since 2008) and United Kingdom (since 2009), and the current objective is to implement Influenzanet in more European countries. In contrast with the traditional system of sentinel networks of mainly primary care physicians, Influenzanet obtains its data directly from the population. This creates a fast and flexible monitoring system whose uniformity allows for direct comparison of ILI rates between countries.
Any resident of a country where Influenzanet is implemented can participate by completing an online application form, which contains various medical, geographic and behavioural questions. Participants are reminded weekly to report any symptoms they have experienced since their last visit. The incidence of ILI is determined on the basis of a uniform case definition.
All results are updated daily.
Latest news
A new study has found a link between the La Nina weather pattern and the worldwide pandemics of influenza in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009.
Each of those pandemics was preceded by La Nina conditions in the equatorial Pacific, found the study published online Monday in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). CONTINUE READING
A novel program known as Google Flu Trends (GFT) harnesses the power of the search engine to detect influenza outbreaks in near-real time by monitoring public Internet queries, a retrospective study showed.
High correlations were seen when the GFT estimates were compared with numbers of laboratory-confirmed positive cases in both adult (r = 0.876) and pediatric (r = 0.718) emergency departments (EDs) in an academic medical center in Baltimore, according to Andrea Freyer Dugas, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues. CONTINUE READING
Too much exercise damages the immune system and makes people more prone to colds and flu, a study has found.
On the other hand, a regular brisk walk can keep winter colds and flu at bay. Moderate exercise strengthens the body's defences against nose and throat infections such as the common cold, flu and sinusitis, according to expert Professor Mike Gleeson. But too much exercise might be as bad as too little for the immune system. CONTINUE READING
The case fatality rate for H5N1 influenza virus infections in humans is considerably higher than that for seasonal influenza virus infections. Respiratory failure due to acute respiratory distress syndrome is a complication of severe H5N1 disease.
Zeng et al. show that, unlike seasonal influenza viruses, H5N1 influenza virus can target human pulmonary endothelial cells for efficient replication, resulting in high virus loads and an overwhelming immune response. These results shed light on the pathogenic mechanisms of pulmonary endothelial injury associated with H5N1 influenza virus infections. CONTINUE READING
The use of statins—widely used lipid-control drugs—was associated with a 41% lower death rate in patients who were hospitalized with influenza, according to a surveillance study from the 2007-08 flu season that spanned 10 states.
Over the past several years, researchers have identified possible statin benefits for other diseases. For flu, the drugs have the potential to inhibit the release of cytokines, pro-inflammatory chemicals that are thought to play a role in the type of severe pathophysiologic changes in seen in human H5N1 avian flu infections. CONTINUE READING
The global burden of disease attributable to seasonal influenza virus in children is unknown. We aimed to estimate the global incidence of and mortality from lower respiratory infections associated with influenza in children younger than 5 years.
We identified 43 suitable studies, with data for around 8 million children. We estimated that, in 2008, 90 million (95% CI 49—162 million) new cases of influenza (data from nine studies), 20 million (13—32 million) cases of influenza-associated ALRI (13% of all cases of paediatric ALRI; data from six studies), and 1 million (1—2 million) cases of influenza-associated severe ALRI (7% of cases of all severe paediatric ALRI; data from 39 studies) occurred worldwide in children younger than 5 years. We estimated there were 28 000—111 500 deaths in children younger than 5 years attributable to influenza-associated ALRI in 2008, with 99% of these deaths occurring in developing countries. Incidence and mortality varied substantially from year to year in any one setting..CONTINUE READING
Populations of seasonal influenza virus experience strong annual bottlenecks that pose a considerable extinction risk. It has been suggested that an influenza source population located in tropical Southeast or East Asia seeds annual temperate epidemics.
Here we investigate the seasonal dynamics and migration patterns of influenza A H3N2 virus by analysis of virus samples obtained from 2003 to 2006 from Australia, Europe, Japan, New York, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and newly sequenced viruses from Hong Kong.CONTINUE READING
The Iowa Department of Public Health today reported that a “novel strain of the influenza virus has been detected in three children.
All three of the children were reportedly mildly ill and have recovered. Iowa has increased surveillance for influenza-like-illness to detect any additional cases of infection with this novel virus. CONTINUE READING
As people age, their immune system becomes less robust. This makes them more susceptible to serious and frequently life-threatening infections with viruses that affect the respiratory tract such as influenza A virus (IAV).
Stanley Perlman and colleagues, at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, have now identified a new immune system defect in aged mice that makes them more susceptible than young mice to developing severe clinical disease upon infection with respiratory viruses such as IAV. Importantly, they were able to reverse the defect by inhibiting the immune molecule PGD2.CONTINUE READING
New technology now makes it possible to collect 'near real-time' data about whether people are having any side effects from vaccination. By studying people who received the 2009-10 swine flu vaccination in Scotland, researchers showed that this rapid reporting can add another layer of safety to future vaccination campaigns.
In addition, the data collected revealed no significant safety issues in patients exposed to the vaccine. The project's report has just been published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.CONTINUE READING
Vaccinating children annually against influenza virus interferes with their development of cross-reactive killer T cells to flu viruses generally, according to a paper in the November Journal of Virology.
In this study, first author Rogier Bodewes of Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and his collaborators collected blood samples from Dutch children with cystic fibrosis, who are vaccinated annually against influenza, and from healthy control children who are not vaccinated, and tested both sets of blood samples for the presence of virus-specific killer T cells. The majority of virus-specific killer T cells are directed to conserved viral proteins, that is, proteins that are very similar among different flu viruses, unlike the rapidly evolving, highly variable proteins which are targets of antibodies induced by influenza vaccines.CONTINUE READING
A commonly held theory says that flu virus originates every year in Southeast and Eastern Asia, making this region the source of seasonal flu epidemics in other parts of the world. However, researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have found that influenza virus in tropical areas isn't the only global source of flu epidemics.
The international team of scientists involved in the work found that any one of the urban centers they studied could act as a source for a flu epidemic in any other locality. "We found that these regions are just one node in a network of urban centers connected by air travel, through which flu virus circulates and causes a series of local epidemics that overlap in time," said Gavin Smith, PhD, senior author and Associate Professor in the Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS. CONTINUE READING
In an emerging influenza pandemic, estimating severity is a public health priority. As many influenza infections are subclinical, sero-surveillance is needed to allow reliable real-time estimates of infection attack rate (IAR) and severity.
Serial cross-sectional serologic data together with clinical surveillance data can allow reliable real-time estimates of IAR and severity in an emerging pandemic. Sero-surveillance for pandemics should be considered. CONTINUE READING
There's more than one way to mop up after a flu infection.
Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report in Nature Immunology that a previously unrecognized population of lung immune cells orchestrate the body's repair response following flu infection. CONTINUE READING
Different influenza subtypes can evolve at very different rates, but the causes are not well understood.
In this paper, we explore whether differences in transmissibility between subtypes can play a role if there are fitness constraints on antigenic evolution. We investigate the problem using a mathematical model that separates the interaction of strains through cross-immunity from the process of emergence for new antigenic variants. CONTINUE READING
Influenzanet is a system to monitor the activity of influenza-like-illness (ILI) with the aid of volunteers via the internet with the aid of volunteers.
We have tried to ensure that all information we provide through this website is correct at the time we include it.
