For how we live.
In preregistered trials of more than 90,000 patients, telling people an algorithm flagged them as high-risk lifted vaccination by a few points — and saying the algorithm was involved changed nothing.
The CENTERSTONE trial found a single dose lowered lab-confirmed spread to household contacts by about a third, but spread that made contacts ill was not significantly cut, and resistant virus emerged in some patients.
A cluster-randomised trial in nearly 2,000 US nursing homes found fewer confirmed influenza outbreaks with a recombinant vaccine in a moderate flu season, but no difference in a near-flu-free one.
Early studies made elderberry look promising for colds, and sales topped $100 million. But the trials are small, and the most rigorous one — a randomised flu trial in emergency patients — found no benefit at all.
With influenza, virus shedding starts within a day of infection, peaks on day two and lasts about five days on average — often before you feel your worst. Nearly a quarter of infections cause one symptom or none at all.
Two randomised UK trials tested giving the vaccines together. Systemic reactions stayed mostly mild and immune responses held up, though one trial saw more sore arms and a dip in COVID antibodies with co-administration.
The injected vaccine contains no live virus. In a Cochrane review, inactivated vaccines raised fever only from 1.5% to 2.3%, and a randomised crossover trial found no excess systemic symptoms over saline placebo.
WHO flagged a drifted A(H3N2) subclade K in December; the first 2025-2026 effectiveness data, from 1.4 million US veterans, put overall protection near 22% and protection against hospitalisation near 32%.
The two most-prescribed respiratory antivirals sit at opposite ends of the evidence. One shortens flu by less than a day on average; the other cut serious outcomes sharply — but only in the group at real risk.
The honest position is two things at once: the current risk to the general public is low, and the reason it is watched so closely is that its worst-case potential is high. The gap between the two is the whole story.
The uncomfortable answer from the studies is that symptoms overlap too much to be sure without a test — and that most of what genuinely helps is prevention, not a cure.
Three surveillance networks put 2025/26 effectiveness between 22% and 45% against a drifted H3N2 virus. The figure is a comparison between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who all got tested.
The patient had spent months in Senegal and was found to carry the poultry-adapted virus alongside tuberculosis. WHO rates the public risk as low and traced no onward spread.
WHO updated all three components for the 2026-2027 northern hemisphere season after subclade K dominated globally, and recommended a new candidate vaccine virus for an H9N2 avian strain.
Two February papers put respiratory virus activity into the models. One finds pollution effects amplified at peak influenza; the other finds them attenuated when rhinovirus is high.
Fourteen months after an undiagnosed febrile outbreak alarmed the world, sequencing and PCR on 108 patients found no novel pathogen — half had falciparum malaria and many had a respiratory co-infection.
A Washington State adult died on 21 November after infection with an avian influenza subtype never before found in a person. Contact tracing found no onward spread. Europe is having a record autumn bird season.
The 5 December directive tells HHS and the CDC to compare the American childhood schedule with those of other wealthy nations, using a count of diseases as its benchmark.
An 18,476-person phase 3 trial and a small human challenge study landed the same day. Both favour the mRNA vaccine against influenza A; neither settles what it does against influenza B.
Thirty-seven had the necrotising form, of whom 41% died. Just 16% of vaccine-eligible children with encephalopathy had received that season's flu vaccine. There is no national surveillance for the condition.
A Federal Register notice on 9 June listed eleven vaccine topics and ten scheduled votes over three days. An amended notice on 24 June listed seven topics, three votes and two days.