• Title/Summary/Keyword: Swine Flu

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Study of Specific Oligosaccharide Structures Related with Swine Flu (H1N1) and Avian Flu, and Tamiflu as Their Remedy

  • Yoo, Eun-Sun
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.21 no.5
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    • pp.449-454
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    • 2011
  • The infection of pandemic influenza viruses such as swine flu (H1N1) and avian flu viruses to the host cells is related to the following two factors: First, the surface protein such as HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase) of the influenza virus. Second, the specific structure of the oligosaccharide [sialic acid(${\alpha}2$-6) galactose(${\beta}1$-4)glucose or sialic acid(${\alpha}2$-3)galactose(${\beta}1$-4)glucose] on the host cell. After recognizing the specific structure of the oligosaccharide on the surface of host cells by the surface protein of the influenza virus, the influenza virus can secrete sialidase and cleave the sialic acid attached on the final position of the specific structure of the oligosaccharide on the surface of host cells. Tamiflu (oseltamivir), known as a remedy of swine flu, has a saccharide analog structure, especially the sialic acid analog. Tamiflu can inhibit the invasion of influenza viruses (swine flu and avian flu viruses) into the host cells by competition with sialic acid on the terminal position of the specific oligosaccharide on the surface of the host cell. Because of the emergence of Tamiflu resistance, the development of new potent anti-influenza inhibitors is needed. The inhibitors with positive-charge groups have potential as antiviral therapeutics, and the strain specificity must also be resolved.

A Lesson in Swine Fever (뉴스초점 - 신종플루(H1N1)의 교훈)

  • Choo, Seung-Hwan
    • Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
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    • v.42 no.6
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    • pp.42-46
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    • 2009
  • Every year influenza contributes to the death of 72 people in the South korea, 20,000 in the U.S. and perhaps millions worldwide. The swine fever so-called the noble flu A H1N1, a strain of the flu virus, which jumped species and burst into the human population in March and April of this year. The outbreak of 2009 novel H1N1 was the fourth in 100 years. Fortunately, it led to today's comparatively tame swine flu than the vicious 1918, which was original H1N1 pandemic flu virus, killed at least 40 million worldwide in an ongoing pandemic era. Although the 2009 H1N1 which is still in full swing, this global flu epidemic is already teaching scientists valuable lessons about pandemics. Evidence accumulated these days indicates that the 2009 H1N1 was not entirely new to all human immune systems. This article introduces only an outline for our better understanding the basic mechanisms of influenza and the vaccination about longstanding fears of that worst-case scenario engendered pandemic that are paying off today.

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Interpretation and Prospection of Influenza Virus through Swine-origin Influenza Virus (신종플루 바이러스를 통한 인플루엔자 바이러스의 해석 및 전망)

  • Chang, Kyung-Soo
    • Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.1-15
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    • 2010
  • Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) is endemic in swine, and classified into influenza A and influenza C but not influenza B. Swine influenza A includes H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2 and H2N3 subtypes. Infection of SIV occurs in only swine and that of S-OIV is rare in human. What human can be infected with S-OIV is called as zoonotic swine flu. Pandemic 2009 swine influenza H1N1 virus (2009 H1N1) was emerged in Mexico, America and Canada and spread worldwide. The triple-reassortant H1N1 resulting from antigenic drift was contained with HA, NA and PB1 of human or swine influenza virus, PB2 and PA polymerase of avian influenza virus, and M, NP and NS of swine influenza virus, The 2009 H1N1 enables to transmit to human and swine. The symptoms and signs in human infected with 2009 H1N1 virus are fever, cough and sore throat, pneumonia as well as diarrhea and vomiting. Co-infection with other viruses and bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae can occur high mortality in high-risk population. 2009 H1N1 virus was easily differentiated from seasonal flu by real time RT-PCR which contributed rapid and confirmed diagnosis. The 2009 H1N1 virus was treated with NA inhibitors such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) but not with adamantanes such as amantadine and rimantadine. Evolution of influenza virus has continued in various hosts. Development of a more effective vaccine against influenza prototypes is needed to protect new influenza infection such as H5 and H7 subtypes to infect to multi-organ and cause high pathogenicity.

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A Study of air Sterilization System in Personalized Office Using Simulation (시뮬레이션을 이용한 개별사무공간의 살균공조시스템 연구)

  • Choi, Sang-Gon
    • Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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    • v.22 no.6
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    • pp.353-360
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    • 2010
  • Recently H1N1(swine flu) and SARS has been infected widely in the world; we have to care about germs and virus in indoor air environment. The air sterilization system investigated in this study allows occupants to turn on/off and to control the incoming air speed and direction. To predict the performance of air sterilization system without real experiment, a simulation is considered to compare and analyze the performance of the air sterilization systems in a typical office space. Multiple system parameters including volume flow rate and velocity of supply air were varied and investigated during the simulation. The investigation result shows that difference (between simulation and experiment) was about 3.5% in case of minimum air flow rate and about 0.2% in case of maximum air flow rate. The results indicate that multi-zone simulation technique can be used to predict the performance of a sterilization system in personalized office.

Compulsory Licensing as a price control and supply policy of patented drugs : Is it a possible alternative in South Korea? (특허신약의 가격통제 및 공급 정책으로서의 강제실시 : 한국에서의 가능성과 한계)

  • Byeon, Jin-Ok;Chung, Jung-Hoon
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.64-86
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    • 2010
  • Korea has had problems with the price and supply of essential drugs such as Gleevec for leukemia, Fuzeon for HIV/AIDS, and Tamiflu for both avian flu and swine flu. The shortage or refusal of patented drugs supply is imposing a heavy burden in not only developing countries but also developed countries. Thinking over the serious results, we need to concern about the limited access to patented drugs by multinational drug companies' patent monopoly especially for pandemic and life threatening diseases. The effective response regarding to pandemic and life threatening diseases. The effective response regarding to pandemic situation requests collaborative and unbiased provisions of all countries in the world, however, sometimes patent monopoly may hinder the efforts. Compulsory licensing has been considered to be a useful alternative to the abuse of patent rights. However, the Korean experiences of compulsory licensing have left some controversial issues in connection with the availability of it in Korea. 'Flexibility' allowed in TRIPS and Doha Declaration has not come into effect in Korea for several reasons. Although the situation shows the limitations of compulsory licensing as a pharmaceutical supply policy, it is clear that compulsory licensing still has the possibilities of enhancing the access to medicines of all countries in need. Through searching the institutionalization process and experiments of compulsory licensing in Korea, this article explores the possibilities and the limits.

Comparative Study of the Nucleotide Bias Between the Novel H1N1 and H5N1 Subtypes of Influenza A Viruses Using Bioinformatics Techniques

  • Ahn, In-Sung;Son, Hyeon-Seok
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.63-70
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    • 2010
  • Novel influenza A (H1N1) is a newly emerged flu virus that was first detected in April 2009. Unlike the avian influenza (H5N1), this virus has been known to be able to spread from human to human directly. Although it is uncertain how severe this novel H1N1 virus will be in terms of human illness, the illness may be more widespread because most people will not have immunity to it. In this study, we compared the codon usage bias between the novel H1N1 influenza A viruses and other viruses such as H1N1 and H5N1 subtypes to investigate the genomic patterns of novel influenza A (H1N1). Totally, 1,675 nucleotide sequences of the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes of influenza A virus, including H1N1 and H5N1 subtypes occurring from 2004 to 2009, were used. As a result, we found that the novel H1N1 influenza A viruses showed the most close correlations with the swine-origin H1N1 subtypes than other H1N1 viruses, in the result from not only the analysis of nucleotide compositions, but also the phylogenetic analysis. Although the genetic sequences of novel H1N1 subtypes were not exactly the same as the other H1N1 subtypes, the HA and NA genes of novel H1N1s showed very similar codon usage patterns with other H1N1 subtypes, especially with the swine-origin H1N1 influenza A viruses. Our findings strongly suggested that those novel H1N1 viruses seemed to be originated from the swine-host H1N1 viruses in terms of the codon usage patterns.

Macroeconomic and Non-Macroeconomic Forces Effect on the Management Performance of the Air Transport Firms (거시경제 및 비 거시경제변수가 항공운송업의 경영성과에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Su-Jeong
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.352-361
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic forces on the management performance of the air transport firms and offer the useful information to the managers. To conduct the regression analysis, eight macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic variables were selected individually as an independent variable. Macroeconomic variables were the return of corporate bond, West Texas Intermediate, the unemployment rate, the money supply, the trade balance, the won to USD exchange rate, the consumer price index and the index of industrial production. And non-macroeconomic variables were Taiwan earthquake, the Asian economic crisis, the 911 terrorist attacks in the US, the Iraq war, Beijing Olympic, the outbreak of a swine flu epidemic, the 1st presidential election and the 2nd presidential election. And ROA was selected as a dependent variable. As the result of analysis, it was found that the changing rates of won to USD exchange rate and consumer price index affected the changing rate of ROA significantly. And also as the result of analysing the impact of two significant macroeconomic variables and eight non-macroeconomic variables on the changing rate of ROA, it was found that the Asian economic crisis and the outbreak of a swine flu epidemic had a negative impact on it. Therefore managers should take note of a change in macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic variables carefully to improve the management performance.

A Study on the Improvement of Quarantine Act for Effective Quarantine System (효과적 검역체계를 위한 검역법 개선방안)

  • Lee, Yoon Hyeon;Kim, Myeong Seong;Lee, Jinhong
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.301-307
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    • 2018
  • The development of transport is being easily shared with people all over the world. It is necessary to appropriately and effectively revise the domestic quarantine law because the fatal infectious diseases are at risk of being easily shared. Today, Korea has an advanced quarantine system approved by World Health Organization, but it maintains partnerships with related ministries (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, local medical institutions) and to introduce new medical technology (electronic quarantine) is important. And since the prevention of quarantine infectious diseases and prevention of the spread, in order to maintain international cooperation with the International Health Regulations, the quarantine law and the system should be amended and improved effectively and it is also a way to prepare for the outbreak of new quarantine infectious diseases. In the past, Korea has experienced great confusion during the past outbreak of swine flu and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. To prevent similar cases from recurring in the past, the revision of the quarantine law and the improvement of the system should be done to cope with the changing environment (new infections, increased number of overseas travelers, etc.).

Information Needs and Seeking Behavior During the H1N1 Virus Outbreak

  • Majid, Shaheen;Rahmat, Nor Ain
    • Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.42-53
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    • 2013
  • Timely access to quality healthcare information during an outbreak plays an important role in curtailing its spread. The aim of this study was to investigate the information needs and seeking behavior of the general public in Singapore during the H1N1 pandemic. A pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. The convenience snowball sampling method was used and 260 working adults and tertiary-level students participated in this study. The most crucial information needs of a majority of the participants were: symptoms of H1N1, causes of the infection, preventive measures, and possible treatments. Data analysis also revealed that mass media such as television, newspapers, and radio were most frequently used for seeking the needed information. The use of human information sources was also quite high while only a small number of the respondents accessed online news and healthcare websites. About three-quarters of the participants indicated that the gathered information helped them to stay vigilant and take necessary precautionary measures. A major problem identified by the participants in using H1N1 information was the lack of understanding of certain terms used in public communications. This paper suggests certain measures for strengthening health information communication during future outbreaks.

Post-corona and semiconductor industry: The risk of separation of the semiconductor value chain triggered by Corona 19 and the response strategy of the Korean semiconductor industry (포스트 코로나와 반도체 산업 : 코로나19로 촉발된 반도체 밸류체인 분리 위험과 한국 반도체 산업의 대응전략)

  • Kim, Kiseop;Han, SeungHun
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.28 no.4
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    • pp.127-150
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    • 2020
  • The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the third pandemic in history after the Hong Kong flu and swine flu. The outbreak of Corona 19 dramatically reduced exchanges between countries, while rapid contagion created a time gap in economic fluctuations by country. In January 2020, the trade dispute between the US and China entered into a consensus phase, but the economic decoupling phenomenon caused by Corona 19 made it difficult for China to balance trade with the US and made it difficult to comply with the terms of the trade dispute agreement between the US and China. President Trump attributed the responsibility for the spread of Corona 19 to China, and pointed out that the cause of the economic downturn was the infringement of Chinese trade secrets and illegal copies, and protectionism arose. As a result, China protested fiercely, and the conflict with the United States deepened. The US has declared trade sanctions on Huawei and SMIC, which are key companies in China's semiconductor industry, and is predicting the risk of a disconnection of the semiconductor value chain between the US and China. The separation of the value chain of the semiconductor industry has the potential to have a big impact on the semiconductor industry, a structure that is highly specialized and monopolized by certain countries and companies in the value chain. This paper aims to deal with the risk of disconnection in the semiconductor value chain between the US and China reignited by Corona 19, the impact and change of the global semiconductor industry value chain, and the response strategies of Korean semiconductor companies.