Table of Contents
What is an Influenza Pandemic?
How should I prepare?
How can I protect myself?
What travel precautions are being taken?
Where can I learn more?
Glossary
About Influenza
Influenza (the “flu”) is a seasonal respiratory illness caused by flu viruses. The viruses can cause mild to severe illness sometimes resulting in death. It is important to note that the flu [...]

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza that regularly cause outbreaks of influenza among pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates among pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate in swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks among swine herds occur during [...]

Influenza A H1N1 viruses appeared simultaneously in humans and pigs in 1918 and have been circulating since then with an intermittent period in humans from 1957 to 1977 (Raymond et al., 1986; Xu et al., 1993). When influenza viruses were first isolated from pigs in 1930 and from humans in 1933, separate swine and human [...]

H3N3 and H1N1 influenza A viruses were isolated from Canadian pigs in 2001 and 2002. These viruses are phylogenetically related to waterfowl viruses and antigenically distinct from reference swine influenza viruses. The isolation of these viruses reemphasizes the potential for interspecies transmission of influenza viruses from waterfowl to pigs in North America.
Influenza A virus infections [...]

Children look to adults for guidance on how to react to stressful events. If parents seem overly worried, children may panic. Parents should reassure their children that health and school officials are working hard to ensure that people throughout the country stay healthy. However, children also need factual, age appropriate information about the potential seriousness [...]

Swine Influenza or swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease of pigs, caused by a type A influenza virus. Type A influenza viruses can affect a range of other animals and humans. Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses change or mutate constantly. Over the years, different variants of swine flu viruses have emerged, and [...]

Avian influenza A viruses from Asia are recognized as the source of genes that reassorted with human viral genes to generate the Asian/57 (H2N2) and Hong Kong/68 (H3N2) pandemic strains earlier in this century. Here we report the genetic analysis of avian influenza A H1N1 viruses recently isolated from pigs in southern China, a host [...]

The bizarre case started on 24 October when Sang Heui Seo, a researcher at Chungnam National University in Daejeon, deposited in GenBank partial RNA sequences from a series of viruses isolated from pigs. Niman, a molecular biologist and former Harvard surgery instructor with an intense interest in virus evolution, discovered them soon after they were [...]

According to the World Health Organization, H1N1 Influenza refers to a large group of different influenza viruses that primarily affect pigs. On rare occasions, these H1N1 viruses can infect other species, including humans. The vast majority of H1N1 influenza viruses do not infect humans. An influenza pandemic happens when a new subtype emerges that has [...]

Influenza A virus infections in animals are important contributors to the evolution of human influenza viruses (41, 65, 66, 68). In particular, waterfowl and seabirds constitute a global reservoir of all 15 hemagglutinin (HA) and 9 neuraminidase (NA) subtypes of influenza A viruses (15, 65, 66, 68). Viruses from waterfowl reassorted with existing human influenza [...]

Collection of specimens for pandemic influenza is slightly different from the usual collection procedures for seasonal influenza. Nasal washings are not an FDA approved specimen source for the pandemic influenza assay released by the CDC on May 1, 2009. Hopefully, this situation will change soon. We understand that many providers use nasal wash as a [...]

In the Spring of 2009, a new variation of influenza—H1N1—began to infect people in Mexico. The virus quickly spread to countries around the world, and is potentially on its way to becoming the first pandemic in more than 40 years.
As of this publication date, the virus has been confirmed as the cause of death in [...]