According to the Times of India, scientists in London have developed a new flu vaccination which they claim to be “universal”. The new vaccine, Flu-v, supposedly offers lifelong protection against any and all strains of influenza. Professor John Oxford, scientific director of Retroscreen Virology, said “A universal vaccine could…reduce the need for people to have vaccines each year against seasonal flu”.

The new vaccination is said to recognize a constantly recurring element within the many strains of the virus, and is intended to defend the immune system against that element.

Plans are being made to conduct a larger clinical trial, and hopefully have the vaccine available for the public in three to five years.

There are the obvious things that will give you swine flu”"like getting sneezed on, for instance”"and then there are the painfully obvious things that will give you swine flu”"like playing beer pong.

We could probably file this under “Obvious Science” but officals at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate Troy, NY have warned students that the sharing of cups during games of beer pong lead to the spread of disease, and especially of the spread of H1N1 this flu season. The same officials sent out a campus-wide email detailed a group of students who had all come down the virus after a weekend game.

Area schools are reporting many cases of the swine flu; RPI, a school of about 7,000 total students has reported 21 cases this semester so far.

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The US Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to “use extreme care” when buying any kinds of drugs over the Internet that claim to prevent, treat, diagnose or cure the H1N1 or Swine flu virus.

The FDA warning comes after the government agency purchased and analyzed several products from the Internet that claimed to be “Tamiflu.”

“One of the orders, which arrived in an unmarked envelope with a postmark from India, consisted of unlabeled, white tablets taped between two pieces of paper. When analyzed by the FDA, the tablets were found to contain talc and acetaminophen, but none of the active ingredient oseltamivir,” the FDA said in a statement. The website was gone shortly after the FDA placed the order.

At the same time, the FDA also purchased four other products that arrived with various levels of Tamiflu, but were not approved for use in the US.

“Products that are offered for sale online with claims to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus must be carefully evaluated,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. “Medicines purchased from websites operating outside the law put consumers at increased risk due to a higher potential that the products will be counterfeit, impure, contaminated, or have too little or too much of the active ingredient.”

Two prescription antiviral drugs are approved by the FDA to treat or prevent the H1N1 virus: Tamiflu and Relenza. Consumers can also visit FDA’s website for tips about how to protect themselves when buying medicines online.

Chalk one up for the scientists: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced that preliminary tests have shows that the H1N1 flu vaccine produces a “robust immune response” with only a single dose, and will likely be available earlier than expected.

This signifies a shift from last month when government officials were warning Americans that the swine flu vaccine could be delayed or require multiple dosing. Because the vaccine will likely only require a single dose, it is expeted that even more people will be able to receive the vaccine.

High-risk patients will be allowed to receive the H1N1 vaccine at the beginning of October, while it will be available to the general public by mid-October.

The vaccine for the general flu season is widely available now, and health officials are urging people not to wait to get it. The flu season has started earlier than usual this year, and has proven to be rather virulent, aso early and wide vaccination is the government’s first line of defense against the coming flu season.

TORONTO — A Central Alberta pig farm is under quarantine after its hogs caught the same H1N1 virus that has sickened more than 1,000 humans worldwide. The news has heightened fears among pig farmers, whose animals already face much prejudice because of the virus’s common name, swine flu.

As Alberta’s Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld and countless others have stressed, there is currently no evidence that the virus can be transferred by eating pork products. However, after this occurrence, which is believed to be the first instance that the disease was transferred from human to animal, pork consumers around the world are being extra cautious even after Groenveld publicly exclaimed that “there is no risk to [Alberta's] food supply.”

Chinese officials have banned pork imports from the province even though officials say that the virus was contained to the one farm and that all 2, 200 pigs were quarantined and contained. In total, 200 hogs were infected and are currently recovering. They pose no risk of transmitting the disease to any other Alberta hogs.

The virus was transmitted by a farmer to one of his pigs after he and his family returned from Mexico nearly a month ago with flu-like symptoms. Upon their return, the swine flu outbreak was not major news and therefore, the family never thought to get checked.

Though H1N1 ‚ cannot be transmitted through eating pork, 20 countries, including Russia, China and Thailand have banned the imports of pork products from infected nations including Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, three of the world’s top pork exporters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) remarked that it would need to see H1N1 spread throughout Asia and Europe before declaring a pandemic. This is thought to occur soon.

In Egypt, fears have also risen regarding the safety of pigs. On Saturday the government ordered the genocide of all pigs in Egypt (nearly 300,000), to which farmers and hog owners were outraged. Pig owners threw stones at government officials who in turn fired guns and tossed tear gas. The ‚ officials seized pigs from various owners and gave no compensation in return.

Remarkably, 12 were injured in riots caused by the pig slaughter. Oh and by the way, there have been no reports of any H1N1 virus ‚ cases in Egypt yet.