As the nation's 55 million children prepare for a new school year, the foremost question on many parents' and school administrators' minds is, How will we protect our students from swine flu? Some education officials anticipate that each of the country's 100,000 public schools and thousands of private schools may have to close at some point between now and next summer to stem the tide of the H1N1 pandemic. But according to officials from the Centers for Disease ...

More than 1,100 people worldwide have died from swine flu since it emerged in Mexico and the U.S. in April, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization. As of July 31, the total number of victims killed by the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, stood at 1,154 -- an increase of 338 since WHO's previous update on July 27. The virus has spread around the world with unprecedented speed, spreading as widely in six weeks ...

U.S. health officials are bracing for a resurgence of the new H1N1/09 flu virus this fall, when the influenza season kicks into high gear with a resurgence of cold weather. By October, the government hopes to have 120 million doses of vaccine ready to fight the new virus, which is currently spreading around the world in the first pandemic in over 40 years. Already, H1N1 is hitting the Southern Hemisphere hard: Argentina has recorded more than 160 deaths from ...

French researchers have identified a new human immunodeficiency virus, the first derived from gorillas, a report said Monday. The three previous HIV variants came from chimpanzees. The new findings indicate that gorillas, in addition to chimpanzees, are likely sources of HIV, the researchers concluded in a report published in the weekly Nature Medicine journal. The new virus, called RBF 168, was detected in a 62-year-old woman who moved to Paris from the western Africa nation of Cameroon, the report says. ...

The archbishops of Canterbury and York are recommending that churches stop sharing the chalice at communion over swine flu fears, the Church of England said Thursday. The archbishops wrote a letter to all Church of England bishops with the recommendation. It follows government advice not to share "common vessels" for food or drink so as not to spread the virus. In the Anglican Church, worshippers commonly drink from the same chalice during communion. The chalice is wiped before the next ...

In a race to beat the flu season, medical institutes across the United States will begin human trials for a new H1N1 flu vaccine starting in early August, the University of Maryland announced Wednesday. In the hope of getting the vaccine to those who will need it most by October, the clinical trials will enroll as many as 1,000 adults and children at 10 centers nationwide, said officials at the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland School ...

The first human trials of a swine flu vaccine are expected to start in Australia Wednesday. Melbourne-based company CSL Ltd. plans to test a vaccine for the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, on 240 volunteers, a company representative said. The test will be conducted on healthy adults between the ages of 18-64. Participants will receive two shots three weeks apart and will undergo blood tests to determine if they are generating an appropriate immune response to the virus, ...

British airlines have put into effect measures to stop people with swine flu boarding flights in a bid to prevent the virus from spreading further. British Airways said there had been a "very small number of cases" where people who had checked in with symptoms of H1N1 had been advised not to travel after having medical checks. Virgin Atlantic also said victims would not be allowed to board one of its planes without a fit-to-fly certificate from their ...

North Korea fired a pair of short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Saturday. Kristen Diane Parker, who worked at Rose Medical Center in Denver, has admitted to secretly injecting herself in a bathroom and using unclean syringes as replacements for patients, investigators said. She had hepatitis C, which she believes she contracted through using heroin and sharing dirty needles while she lived in New Jersey in 2008, authorities said. She was a surgical ...

A former hospital employee may have exposed hundreds, or even thousands, of surgical patients to hepatitis C after taking their fentanyl injections and replacing them with used syringes filled with saline solution, authorities say. Kristen Diane Parker, who worked at Rose Medical Center in Denver, has admitted to secretly injecting herself in a bathroom and using unclean syringes as replacements for patients, investigators said. She had hepatitis C, which she believes she contracted through using heroin and sharing dirty needles ...