or the past 65 years, the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), has engaged in open and efficient sharing of information, viruses, and responsibilities. The GISRS’s extraordinary longevity can be attributed to several generations of dedicated scientists and to the engagement of over 100 countries, often with limited resour...

Influenza causes respiratory infections and poses health risks to humans and animals; its effects are complicated by increasing resistance to existing anti-influenza viral agents. Therefore, novel therapeutic approaches against influenza virus infection are required. Psoraleae semen has been widely used in traditional medicine in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan for treating and preventing vario...

Influenza is a contagious airborne viral illness characterized by abrupt onset of symptoms. Fever, myalgia, headache, rhinitis, sore throat, and cough are commonly reported symptoms. The diagnosis should be made clinically, and the decision to begin antiviral therapy should not be delayed for laboratory confirmation of influenza. The 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus is expected to continu...

Epidemiologic studies have shown that children of all ages with certain chronic conditions, such as asthma, and otherwise healthy children younger than 24 months (6 through 23 months) are hospitalized for influenza and its complications at high rates similar to those experienced by the elderly. Annual influenza immunization is already recommended for all children 6 months and older with high-ri...

The desired effect of vaccination is to elicit protective immune responses against infection with pathogenic agents. An inactivated influenza vaccine is able to induce the neutralizing antibodies directed primarily against two surface antigens, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. These two antigens undergo frequent antigenic drift and hence necessitate the annual update of a new vaccine strain. Be...

The emergence of viral infections with potentially devastating consequences for human health is highly dependent on their underlying evolutionary dynamics. One likely scenario for an avian influenza virus, such as A/H5N1, to evolve to one capable of human-to-human transmission is through the acquisition of genetic material from the A/H1N1 or A/H3N2 subtypes already circulating in human populati...

Respiratory infections with both seasonal as well as potential pandemic Influenza viruses represent a significant burden on human health. Furthermore, viruses such as Influenza are increasingly recognized as important etiologic agents in community acquired pneumonia. Within the U.S. alone, approximately 12.9 million people are heavy drinkers and chronic abuse of alcohol is known to increase the...

Synthesis of influenza virus mRNA is primed by capped and methylated (cap 1, m7GpppXm) RNAs which the virus derives by endonucleolytic cleavage from RNA polymerase II transcripts in host cells. The conserved nature of the endonucleolytic processing provides a unique target for the development of antiviral agents for influenza viruses. A series of 4-substituted 2,4-dioxobutanoic acid compounds h...