Cold and Flu News

August 5, 2025

Top Headlines

This Vaccine Uses Dental Floss Instead of Needles

Aug. 3, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that flossing between your teeth could one day help vaccinate you. By targeting a uniquely permeable gum tissue called the junctional epithelium, this new method stimulates immunity right where many infections enter: the ...

Scientists Just Resurrected the 1918 “Spanish Flu” Virus—here’s What They Found

July 24, 2025 — Scientists in Switzerland have cracked open a century-old viral mystery by decoding the genome of the 1918 influenza virus from a preserved Zurich patient. This ancient RNA revealed that the virus ...

A Deadly Virus No One Talks About — and the HIV Drugs That Might Stop It

July 24, 2025 — HIV antivirals may be the key to stopping HTLV-1, a deadly virus with no cure. In a decade-long study, researchers successfully suppressed the virus in mice and discovered a way to kill infected cells, offering hope for the first preventative and ...

One Pregnancy Shot Slashes Baby RSV Hospitalizations by 72% — and Shields for Months

July 21, 2025 — A new UK study shows that vaccinating pregnant women against RSV has led to a staggering 72% drop in hospitalizations of newborns with severe lung infections. By passing virus-fighting antibodies to ...

Scientists Just Found a Major Flaw in a Key COVID Drug Study

July 4, 2025 — A promising path to fighting COVID and other coronaviruses may have been based on a serious mistake. Scientists had zeroed in on a part of the virus called the NiRAN domain, believed to be a powerful target for new antiviral drugs. But when a ...

Large-Scale Immunity Profiling Grants Insights Into Flu Virus Evolution

June 3, 2025 — A new study shows how person-to-person variation in antibody immunity plays a key role in shaping which influenza (flu) strains dominate in a ...

Two HIV Vaccine Trials Show Proof of Concept for Pathway to Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies

May 16, 2025 — A decades-long scientific challenge in HIV vaccine development has been finding a way to train the immune system to produce antibodies that can target many variants of the virus. Traditional ...

New Study Offers Insights Into Designing Safe, Effective Nasal Vaccines

May 15, 2025 — Most vaccines -- and boosters -- are injected directly into muscle tissue, usually in the upper arm, to kickstart the body's immune system in the fight against disease. But for respiratory diseases like COVID-19, it can be important to have ...

Novel, Needle-Free, Live-Attenuated Influenza Vaccines With Broad Protection Against Human and Avian Virus Subtypes

May 9, 2025 — A research team has achieved a significant breakthrough in developing broadly protective, live-attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV). These innovative LAIV platforms offer potential to develop ...

Building Vaccines for Future Versions of a Virus

May 8, 2025 — AI model EVE-Vax provides clues about how a virus may evolve and the immune response it could ...

Engineering an Antibody Against Flu With Sticky Staying Power

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have engineered a monoclonal antibody that can protect mice from a lethal dose of influenza A, a new study shows. The new molecule combines the specificity of a mature flu fighter with the broad binding capacity of a more general immune ...

Vaccines of the Future: Harnessing the Immune System for Long-Lasting Protection

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a promising new way to enhance the effectiveness of vaccines by tapping into the potential of a specific type of immune cell, opening the door to long-lasting vaccines for ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:27am EDT

Viruses Under the Super Microscope: How Influenza Viruses Communicate With Cells

May 7, 2025 — Influenza viruses are among the most likely triggers of future pandemics. A research team has developed a method that can be used to study the ...

Shingles Vaccine Lowers the Risk of Heart Disease for Up to Eight Years

May 6, 2025 — People who are given a vaccine for shingles have a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular events, including stroke, heart failure, and coronary heart disease, according to a recent study of more than a ...

Clinical Trials to Test Vaccine Against Alzheimer's-Promoting Tau Protein

Apr. 23, 2025 — Researchers hope to launch human clinical trials in their quest for a vaccine to prevent the buildup of pathological tau after demonstrating that this vaccine generated a robust immune response in ...

Experimental Bird Flu Vaccine Excels in Animal Models

Apr. 23, 2025 — A vaccine under development has demonstrated complete protection in mice against a deadly variant of the virus that causes bird flu. The work focuses on the H5N1 variant known as 2.3.4.4b, which has ...

Study Reveals Gaps in Flu Treatment for High-Risk Adults

Apr. 22, 2025 — A multi-state study reveals that many high-risk adults diagnosed with influenza (flu) in emergency departments and urgent care centers are not receiving timely antiviral treatment. Researchers found ...

Certain Nasal Bacteria May Boost the Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Study Finds

Apr. 10, 2025 — A new study has found that certain bacteria living in the nose may influence how likely someone is to get a COVID-19 infection. The research reveals ...

Nasal Spray H5N1 Avian Influenza Vaccine Developed

Apr. 8, 2025 — Scientists have pioneered an influenza virus vector-based nasal spray vaccine platform and developed a nasal spray H5N1 avian influenza vaccine. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, this platform ...

Viral 'Backbone' Underlies Variation in Rotavirus Vaccine Effectiveness

Apr. 8, 2025 — Researchers have shown that differences in the entire rotavirus genome -- not just its two surface proteins -- affect how well vaccines work, helping to explain why some strains are more likely to ...

An Antiviral Chewing Gum to Reduce Influenza and Herpes Simplex Virus Transmission

Apr. 4, 2025 — Low vaccination rates for influenza viruses and the lack of an HSV vaccine underscore the need for a new approach to reduce viral transmission. ...

Surgery Doesn't Always Help With Chronic Rhinosinusitis -- A New Risk Score Predicts Treatment Efficacy

Apr. 3, 2025 — A new CT-scan based risk score facilitates the identification of patients at risk of revision endoscopic sinus surgery due to chronic ...

Study Strengthens Link Between Shingles Vaccine and Lower Dementia Risk

Apr. 2, 2025 — A new analysis of a vaccination program in Wales found that the shingles vaccine appeared to lower new dementia diagnoses by 20% -- more than any other known ...

How Zika Virus Knocks out Our Immune Defenses

Mar. 25, 2025 — This research comes as many mosquito-borne viruses are spreading ...

New Data on Mpox Vaccine Effectiveness

Mar. 19, 2025 — A study has found that a single dose of the Imvanex vaccine provides protection against Mpox with 84% effectiveness. For people with HIV, however, a single dose of the vaccine fails to offer ...

Current Antivirals Likely Less Effective Against Severe Infection Caused by Bird Flu Virus in Cows' Milk

Mar. 17, 2025 — Existing antivirals may be less effective against this H5N1 bird flu strain, and prevention measures, such as avoiding raw milk consumption and reducing exposure in dairy workers, may be the most ...

Older Adults Might Be More Resistant to Bird Flu Infections Than Children

Mar. 13, 2025 — Older adults who were exposed to seasonal flu viruses that circulated prior to 1968 are more likely to have some protection against H5N1, and children would benefit more from H5N1 ...

Meningococcal Vaccine Found to Be Safe and Effective for Infants in Sub-Saharan Africa, Study Suggests

Mar. 12, 2025 — Researchers helped conduct an important new global health study that found a vaccine that protects against five strains of meningitis prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa is safe and effective for use in ...

An Aerosol Test for Airborne Bird Flu

Mar. 7, 2025 — Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (also known as bird flu) have created a need for rapid and sensitive detection methods to mitigate its spread. Now, researchers have developed a ...

New Discovery to Accelerate Strep A Vaccine Efforts

Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have discovered how antibodies help to protect against contagious bacterial infections caused by Strep A, including strep throat. And the findings are already contributing to efforts to ...

TB Vaccine Candidate Provides 'Elite' Protection

Mar. 5, 2025 — A live-attenuated tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate in development elicits a much more balanced and effective immune response compared to the existing vaccine used across much of the world, ...

New Biosensor Can Detect Airborne Bird Flu in Under 5 Minutes

Mar. 3, 2025 — As highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza continues to spread in the U.S., posing serious threats to dairy and poultry farms, both farmers and public health experts need better ways to monitor for ...

Immunity Against Seasonal H1N1 Flu Reduces Bird Flu Severity in Ferrets, Study Suggests

Feb. 26, 2025 — Pre-existing immunity against seasonal H1N1 flu might help explain why most reported human cases of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. have not resulted in lethal ...

As Dengue Spreads, Researchers Discover a Clue to Fighting the Virus

Feb. 24, 2025 — This research comes as dengue-carrying mosquitoes expand their territory into new regions, including Southern ...

Backyard Poultry Face Bird Flu Risk When Migrating Mallards Stop to Rest

Feb. 24, 2025 — Knowing where, when and for how long mallard ducks -- natural carriers of avian influenza -- stop and rest as they migrate can help predict the probability that they will spread bird flu to backyard ...

Digging Into a Decades-Old Hepatitis B Mystery Suggests a New Potential Treatment

Feb. 20, 2025 — In their effort to answer a decades-old biological question about how the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is able to establish infection of liver cells, researchers have identified a vulnerability that opens ...

Groundbreaking Study Shows Potential of New mRNA Vaccine to Help Fight Tuberculosis

Feb. 20, 2025 — A new vaccine that boosts immunity against tuberculosis (TB) has been shown to be effective in pioneering pre-clinical ...

Designing Antivirals for Shape-Shifting Viruses

Feb. 18, 2025 — Viruses, like those that cause COVID-19 or HIV, are formidable opponents once they invade our bodies. Antiviral treatments strive to block a virus or halt its replication. However, viruses are ...

Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise for Patients With Stage III and IV Kidney Cancer

Feb. 5, 2025 — Researchers report that all nine patients in a clinical trial being treated for stage III or IV clear cell renal cell carcinoma (a form of kidney cancer), generated a successful anti-cancer immune ...

Asthma and Antibiotic Use May Predict Nasal Polyp Recurrence After Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

Feb. 4, 2025 — The probability of revision sinus surgery including the removal of nasal polyps is higher if the patient has asthma or is on antibiotics at the time of their initial surgery. However, higher age was ...

Antibody Treatment Prevents Severe Bird Flu in Monkeys

Jan. 30, 2025 — The antibody targets a stable part of the bird flu virus, ensuring that the immune protection can resist new variants and offer long-term protection against the globally spreading airborne ...

Little Birds, Little Poops, Little Food Safety Risk

Jan. 21, 2025 — Smaller poops from smaller birds carry very low risk of foodborne pathogens on farms, finds a new ...