Pneumonia | featured news

Influenza has officially reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with 7.3 percent of deaths last week caused by pneumonia and the flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. That is just above the epidemic threshold of 7.2 percent. Nine of the 10 U.S. regions had "elevated" flu activity, confirming that seasonal flu has spread across the country and reached high levels several weeks before the usual time of late January or February. The other region, the Southwest and California, had "normal" flu activity last week.

International donors led by Britain and Bill Gates pledged $4.3 billion on Monday to buy vaccines to protect children in poor countries against potential killers such as diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.

Evangelist Billy Graham was alert and resting comfortably Wednesday evening after being admitted to an Asheville, N.C. hospital for the treatment of pneumonia, doctors said....

A Los Angeles County coroner spokesman said the primary cause of Brittany Murphy's death was pneumonia, with secondary factors of iron-deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication, all of which were prescription medications.

Nicole Richie has been hospitalized for pneumonia but is "doing well," her rep says.

AFP - A town in a Tibetan area in northwest China has been sealed off after two of its residents died from pneumonic plague, the local government and state media said Sunday.

Spokesman Howard Bragman says the 85-year-old former “Tonight Show” sidekick has been hospitalized for a number of weeks, and has pneumonia and other unspecified ailments.