Iowa Declares State of Emergency Over Bird Flu

Medicine & Technology May 01, 2015

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency on Friday to help battle the toll that the recent bird flu epidemic is taking on the state's poultry industry.

In the Wake of Ebola—H7N9 Influenza Has Spread in Secret

Mar 13, 2015

In the wake of the Ebola pandemic, researchers in China have identified a virus capable of global infection that has been mutating and brewing on the sidelines. A strain of the avian influenza, the H7N9 flu emerged in eastern China in Feb. 2013 in a small population with a mortality rate of roughly 33%. But over the last year, since it reemerged in October 2013, the virus has been spreading steadily, and mutating along the way. Now public health officials fear that the growing viral infection may soon reach the levels much like the Ebola outbreak, and it is something that researchers are heavily investigating.

Teen’s Death Demonstrates The Dangers of This Year’s Flu

Jan 03, 2015

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the death of an otherwise healthy 17-year-old girl only highlights the severity of this year's influenza outbreak. Shannon Zwanziger seemed like a perfectly health teenager. She was active and rarely got sick; in fact, she had not even seen a doctor in more than three years. Then, she came down with the flu. Within only a week of fighting the virus, she was dead.