H7N9: the dotted lines that make sense of things...[CORRECTED]

Click on image to enlarge.The latest H7N9 case-per-day chart shows that the trickle of human cases of confirmed avian influenza A(H7N9) virus infection is becoming a drip. The tap? My money is still mostly with the market closures. What precisely in the markets is the source of human H7N9 acquisition?...

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Google Flu Trends: not so perfectly predictive?

I'm no expert at the algorithms that go into the search giant's Google Flu Trends (GFT) predictive website so take what follows as a very superficial opinion. It does not surprise me at all that a recent paper in Science [1], backing up previous chatter on this subject [2], finds GFT is is not very accurate. Specifically, it has been overestimating peak influenza levels compared to more traditional...

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The decline of H7N9 Wave 2: some thoughts on why it may be different from Wave 1...

Influenza virus and influenza the disease certainly give scientists a run for their limited money when it comes to predicting what either will do from year-to-year, country-to-country or outbreak-to-outbreak. And just when you think you know enough, things change. This morning...

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Editor's note #15: Twitter followers

Thanks to all 508 of you who now follow me on Twitter (@MackayIM). Very cool!I hope I can keep it interesting and worthwhile.Happy Wednesday!(hardly interesting or worthwhile was that for my 498th blog po...

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Influenza in Queensland, Australia: 24-Feb-2014:03-Mar-2014.

Image adapted from Geoscience Australia,The Australian Government.http://www-a.ga.gov.au/web_temp/1531782/61756.pdfAutumn is upon us as the temperatures drop and we've had several days of showery weather in Brisbane.The Courier mail (and my local radio) media note that "swine flu" (H1N1pdm09...

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An update on avian influenza A(H7N9) virus cases in humans: Week 56

As we currently stand (this minute), there are 389 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection including perhaps 122 deaths (31% PFC). H7N9 cases are mostly noted in older males (Average age 54-years; Wave 1 57-years; Wave 2 53-years) with the major risk being exposure to birds and "poultry markets"...

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H7N9 and human infections: not just a paltry matter

Jones and an all-star cast of colleagues from Hong Kong, Shenzen, Beijing and Tennessee have looked at songbirds and their susceptibility to a human isolate (infectious virus recovered from a human case of H7N9 influenza) H7N9 infection (1).But before I note the good bits of their study, this paper...

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