Dire predictions of a flu pandemic proved overblown in 2005 and 2009.
Over the last year, it has been impossible to watch TV or read a newspaper without encountering dire reports about bird flu and the possibility of a pandemic, a worldwide epidemic.
In the latest of these experiments, which Dr. Kawaoka reports today, a gene called the hemagglutinin or HA gene seems to be largely responsible for the dire effects of Spanish flu, as the 1918 epidemic is also known.
Wednesday's match arrives with Mexico looking inward as it faces a dire economy, a swine flu epidemic and brutal drug wars, said Emilio Kouri, the director of the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at the University of Chicago.
In the wake of dire warnings about new flu variant H1N1, Horizon follows the researchers trying to unravel viruses' secrets to understand when and why they kill.
Health experts noted that if the disease were to mutate and cause humans to transmit the flu, the consequences could be dire.
As the spring and summer of 2009 played out, Mexico faced a dire economy during a global recession, a swine flu epidemic, and escalating and brutal drug wars.
While 2009 was a very bad year for flu, worst-in-four-years doesn't sound quite as dire as worst-on-record.
I work from a home office and, after two days of meeting deadlines while tending a flu-infested teenager, who claimed to be in such dire straits that venturing from their bed for water was out of the question, I was ready to run shrieking into the void.
Many public health experts agree that relying on just two companies to supply all of the nation's flu vaccine needs was a mistake, since any glitch would have dire effects.
