"What the epidemiologists are seeing now with this particular strain of U.N. is that the severity of the disease, the severity of the flu -- how sick you get -- is not stronger than regular seasonal flu, " Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday as the worldwide number of confirmed cases of swine flu -- technically known as 2009 H1N1 virus -- topped 1, 080.

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The other patients' ability to understand depended on the severity of their disease.

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Those thought to have pneumonia were excluded from the study due to the severity of the disease if not treated promptly.

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Now that the flu is the big worry, Roche has had to deal with big orders for Tamiflu, a drug which seems to lessen the severity of the disease.

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" And he noted that a pandemic describes "the geographic spread of the disease, not its severity.

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In heart disease studies, for example, subjective outcomes might include the duration and severity of chest pain, shortness of breath, or ability to exercise without pain.

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In a clinical trial conducted in Russia, dimebon improved the ability of patients with Alzheimer's disease on a standardized test used to measure disease severity.

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In a preliminary study, Dr McNamara discovered that those with Parkinson's had lower levels of religiosity than healthy individuals, and that the difference seemed to correlate with the disease's severity.

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