flu (Page 15)

New studies are underway to develop a universal flu vaccine designed to protect against all potential varieties of influenza virus, including swine flu and bird flu. This research is especially important as health workers try to figure out how to get the new avian flu vaccine to everyone who may be exposed to the virus in the future.

Researchers plan to incorporate elements that are identical in all human virus strains, which should make the vaccine effective against all future flu variants. This would avoid the problem of having to create new flu vaccines every year, as the viruses mutate.
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Finally?before the dreaded pandamic?an avian (bird flu) vaccine has been created. Unless we’re doctors or public health workers, this doesn’t mean much to us here in the US, but scientists have been worried that this disease, which originally spread to humans from birds (especially poultry) in Asian countries, would eventually lead to an epidemic as devastating as the 1918 flu which killed millions of people worldwide.
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In Italy and Spanish-speaking countries, people tend to “talk with their hands” as well as their voices. If you can’t always find the right word, you might want to start doing this too, because new research suggests that gesturing while you talk may improve your access to language. One thing you should definitely do with your hands is wash them often. Doctors think that the reason SARS never reached Japan is that Japan is a nation of hand-washers.
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Agence France-Presse – Some samples of adeadly fluvirus that a US institute sent out to more than 3,700laboratories around the world have disappeared on their wayto two of their destinations (in Lebanon and Mexico) theUN’s health agency revealed Friday.
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