Good Health Habits Can Help Stop Germs And Prevent the Flu.

The seasonal flu vaccine protects against the influenza viruses that research indicates will be most common during the upcoming season. There are several flu vaccine options for the 2018-2019 flu season.

Number one is of course getting vaccinated, the Flu Shot. But when you are out and about,

1. Avoid close contact.Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too.

2. Stay home when you are sick.If possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick. This will help prevent spreading your illness to others.

3. Cover your mouth and nose.Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Flu and other serious respiratory illnesses, like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), whooping cough, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), are spread by cough, sneezing, or unclean hands.

4. Clean your hands.Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.

Flublok, A New Seasonal Influenza Vaccine, Approved By FDA

The FDA has approved Flublok vaccine for people 18-49 years old making it the first recombinant vaccine for influenza available on the market.
Flublok is a novel protein vaccine for the prevention of seasonal influenza disease and is the first to be made in a 100% egg-free system without growing influenza viruses. According to the company, the vaccine can be made quickly and without any of the infectious risk traditionally associated with vaccine manufacture. They also mentioned that Flublok is highly purified, has three times the amount of active ingredient in traditional influenza vaccines, and  contains no preservatives (thimerosal), antibiotics or adjuvants.

“Flublok is truly a modern vaccine, We use advanced scientific technology to make just the active ingredient of the vaccine without any other viral components. This is the first influenza vaccine on the market to do so.” said Manon Cox, CEO of Protein Sciences.

For more information on Flu (Influenza):

• Flu.gov: consumer site for flu information

• FDA: Influenza Vaccine Safety & Availability

• CDC: Seasonal Influenza – Who should get vaccinated against influenza (Flu)

• Flu Vaccine Finder: http://flushot.healthmap.org

For Immediate Release: Jan. 16, 2013
Media Inquiries: Rita Chappelle, 301-796-4672, rita.chappelle@fda.hhs.govConsumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA, OCOD@fda.hhs.govFDA approves new seasonal influenza vaccine made using novel technology 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it has approved Flublok, the first trivalent influenza vaccine made using an insect virus (baculovirus) expression system and recombinant DNA technology. Flublok is approved for the prevention of seasonal influenza in people 18 through 49 years of age.
Unlike current flu vaccines, Flublok does not use the influenza virus or eggs in its production. Flublok’s novel manufacturing technology allows for production of large quantities of the influenza virus protein, hemagglutinin (HA) – the active ingredient in all inactivated influenza vaccines that is essential for entry of the virus into cells in the body. The majority of antibodies that prevent influenza virus infection are directed against HA. While the technology is new to flu vaccine production, it is used to make vaccines that have been approved by the FDA to prevent other infectious diseases.
“This approval represents a technological advance in the manufacturing of an influenza vaccine,” said Karen Midthun, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “The new technology offers the potential for faster start-up of the vaccine manufacturing process in the event of a pandemic, because it is not dependent on an egg supply or on availability of the influenza virus.”
Each year, the FDA, World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health experts collaborate on the review of influenza disease surveillance and laboratory data collected from around the world in an effort to identify strains that may cause the most illness in the upcoming season. Based on that information and on the recommendations of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the FDA selects the different influenza strains each year that manufacturers should include in their vaccines for the U.S. population for the upcoming influenza season. The closer the match between the circulating strains causing disease and the strains in the vaccine, the better the protection against influenza.
Flublok contains three, full-length, recombinant HA proteins to help protect against two influenza virus A strains, H1N1 and H3N2, and one influenza virus B strain.
As it does with all influenza vaccines, the FDA will evaluate Flublok annually prior to use by the public each flu season. The recombinant HA proteins produced in the baculovirus expression system and included in Flublok will be assessed by the FDA.
The effectiveness of Flublok was evaluated in a study conducted at various sites in the United States that compared the use of Flublok in about 2,300 people to a placebo that was given to a control group of similar size. Flublok was about 44.6 percent effective against all circulating influenza strains, not just the strains that matched the strains included in the vaccine.
Flublok’s safety evaluation was conducted in a study of about 2,500 people who were vaccinated with Flublok. The most commonly reported adverse events included pain at the site of injection, headache, fatigue and muscle aches, events also typical for conventional egg-based, inactivated influenza vaccines.
Flublok has a shelf life of 16 weeks from the date of manufacture. Health care providers should check the expiration date before administering Flublok.
Flublok is manufactured by Protein Sciences Corp, of Meriden, Conn.
For more information:

• Flu.gov: consumer site for flu information

• FDA: Influenza Vaccine Safety & Availability

• CDC: Seasonal Influenza – Who should get vaccinated against influenza (Flu)

• Flu Vaccine Finder: http://flushot.healthmap.org

for more information

Absolute Humidity Governs Seasonal Flu Patterns In Winter!

With all the theories about why flu spread widely in winter, from weak immune systems to cooping up together in chilly weather, a scientific answer seem to be emerging.
It has been long known that the Flu Survival and Flu Transmission is related to humidity. It seems now that the lesser the humidity, absolute humidity, leading to lesser water vapors in the air, flu thrives. The relative humidity is a ever changing number which depends on the temperature has been an unreliable indicator for providing data for the study of flu.
National Institute of Health, NIH, supported disease modeling research team analyzed 30 years of flu and weather data and built a computer model that showed the patterns of how the seasonal flu spread.
Using absolute humidity, "we found that we could reproduce the seasonal cycle of influenza very nicely in basically the whole country. The flu virus survived longer and transmitted more easily from person to person in the low absolute humidity typical of U.S. winters. It didn't live as long and had more trouble transmitting in the high absolute humidity typical of summers " says Oregon State University climatologist Jeffrey Shaman one of the people who led the research team.
But just using humidifiers will not prevent people from getting flu, unless there is a humidifier large enough to humidify the whole continent, but then it might turn into a giant snow machine.
So the best prevention against flu is vaccination!

PLoS Currents: Influenza, Infobase for luenza Research

Public Library of Science (PLoS) has launched "PLoS Currents"(Beta), A innovative and experimental website to share the research results and ideas rapidly.
Keeping up with current issues and responding to the recent worldwide H1N1 influenza outbreak, the first PLoS Currents research theme is influenza.
The site uses many tools like Google Knol and NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) database called Rapid Research Notes, Both which are created and moderated by the experts in the field.
The value of this type of information sources is that they are available to anyone from anywhere with internet connection.
PLoS Currents: Influenza welcomes contributions covering any and all aspects of research into influenza: influenza virology, genetics, immunity, structural biology, genomics, epidemiology, modeling, evolution, policy and control. Contributions might take the form of new datasets, preliminary analyses or entire manuscripts. The launch site already features new findings from some outstanding influenza researchers.

To enable contributions to PLoS Currents: Influenza to be shared as rapidly as possible, they will not be subject to in-depth peer review; however, unsuitable submissions will be screened out by a board of expert moderators led by Eddie Holmes (Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University) and Peter Palese (Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine).
Official Google Blog: A new website for the rapid sharing of influenza research

Tags: PLoS Currents, Influenza, H1N1 Influenza, NCBI, Public Library of Science, google knol