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Showing posts from August, 2017

As flu season approaches, a possible breakthrough for monitoring H1N1

A new finding from the largest study of its kind could improve disease monitoring for the H1N1 flu, which is the same strain that caused the influenza pandemic in 2009. . In 2009, H1N1 was a huge concern in Connecticut, where the Centers for Disease Control classified its outbreak as being regionally located. Other states, such as Virginia suffered widespread outbreaks. In June 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the strain of swine-origin H1N1 as a pandemic. The virus had spread worldwide and had caused about 17,000 deaths by the start of 2010, but about a year later, WHO declared that the H1N1 influenza pandemic was over. Now, Penn State has announced via an Aug. 2 press release a new technique expected to be especially useful in the tropics, where H1N1 is still a concern because flu season never ends, and where new viruses often emerge. Scientists have identified a way to not only identify the presence of H1N1 in the body, but know whether it ever existed. In