Weekly releases (1997–2007) - Volume 8, Issue 47, 18 November 2004

Much progress has been made since hepatitis B vaccine became available two decades ago. An increasing number of countries now meet the recommendations of the World Health Assembly which called, in 1992, for the inclusion of hepatitis B immunisation in national vaccination programmes

The development of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in transgenic mice expressing the human PrP gene only occurred in those mice that were methionine homozygotes at codon 129 of that gene, according to a recently published study

Clinicians and the public in Scotland have been advised to be alert to cases of meningococal disease this winter, after a recent increase in cases was detected. This was the message from Health Protection Scotland

An analysis of data collected by the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme during the past five winters (1999-2004) reveals a possible west-east spread of influenza across Europe