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Covid News Watch
Antiviral Purchased by U.K. Government Does Not Lower Risk of Hospital Admission, Trial Shows + More
COVID: Antiviral Purchased by U.K. Government Does Not Lower Risk of Hospital Admission, Trial Shows
Molnupiravir, a COVID-19 antiviral drug bought by the U.K. government in the amount of 2.23 million doses, is no better than a placebo at lowering the risks of death and hospital admission, a pivotal U.K. trial has found.
Preliminary results released from the Panoramic trial of 25,783 people who were randomly assigned to open-label treatment with molnupiravir plus usual care or to usual care alone found no significant difference between the two groups for the primary endpoint of death or hospital admission. The study has been published as a preprint and has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The U.K. was the first country to authorize Merck Sharp and Dohme’s molnupiravir (Lagevrio) for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults with at least one risk factor for severe illness, in November 2021. The European Medicines Agency has still not approved the drug.
The Panoramic study is still open and is now studying a second oral antiviral, Paxlovid, which entered the study on April 12, 2022. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is also currently assessing molnupiravir.
Florida Surgeon General Recommends That Adult Men Under 40 Stay Away From COVID mRNA Vaccines
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo is recommending that adult men under 40 stay away from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. The new guidance was issued Friday and states that a Florida Department of Health analysis on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines showed an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men ages 18-39.
“The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety,” a news release from the Florida Department of Health states.
“This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group.”
Ladapo first released this new guidance in a tweet. The tweet was taken down for a few hours over the weekend after Twitter flagged it as misinformation, but it was later restored.
Pfizer Exec Denies CEO Negotiated EU COVID Vaccine Contract via Text Message
A Pfizer (PFE.N) executive with a lead role in negotiating a COVID-19 vaccine bulk supply agreement with the European Commission “categorically” ruled out that the U.S. drugmaker’s chief executive agreed to the contract via mobile phone text messages.
“As to whether a contract negotiation such as this contract which you referred to, 1.8 billion doses, was negotiated through an SMS, I can categorically tell you that would not be the case,” Janine Small, president of international developed markets at Pfizer, told the European Parliament’s special committee on COVID-19 on Monday.
In an interview with The New York Times in April 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen revealed she had exchanged texts with Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla for a month while the contract was under negotiation, prompting calls to publish the exchange.
The Commission said in June this year that it no longer had the texts, which later drew criticism from the European Union’s ombudswoman.
AstraZeneca’s COVID Vaccine Suffers a Setback in Nasal Spray Trial
Attempts by Oxford University researchers and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) to create a nasal-spray version of their jointly developed COVID-19 shot suffered a setback on Tuesday as initial testing on humans did not yield the desired protection.
Antibody response in the respiratory mucous membranes was seen in only a minority of participants in the trial, which was in the first of usually three phases of clinical testing, the University of Oxford said in a statement on Tuesday. Also, the immune response measured in the blood was weaker than that from a shot-in-the-arm vaccination.
Researchers across the world have placed high hopes on nasal spray vaccines against the coronavirus because the method is believed to potentially prevent infection and not just disease as it may prompt an immune response directly in the airways, where the virus enters the body.
Regulators in India and China have already cleared products that are administered through the airways.
Biden Administration Scrambling to Get More People Boosted Before Winter
The Biden administration is racing against the dropping temperatures to convince more Americans to get the updated COVID-19 booster shot amid low uptake numbers driven by confusion over the shot, declining cases and profound pandemic fatigue.
By the end of last week, the administration expected between 13 and 15 million people out of 283.4 million Americans aged 12 and up will have opted to get the updated Moderna or Pfizer jab ahead of what officials warn could be another deadly COVID winter.
That’s just five percent of the eligible population — a sign of the stark challenge facing a Biden administration that has positioned October as a make-or-break month for the overall success of its booster campaign. Top health officials have downplayed the low takeup, saying the numbers are a good start.
But ahead of the critical stretch, doctors and advocates said people are burned out, tuned out and don’t understand why they need another booster. And even some administration officials privately acknowledge there’s little internal expectation they’ll see an explosion of interest.
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Where Cases Are Growing and Declining
Although the Omicron subvariant BA.5 is currently causing most new COVID-19 cases in the United States, a new emerging variant could drive another winter surge, according to White House chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci.
BA.5 accounts for nearly 81% of the genetically sequenced samples collected in the U.S. between September 25 and October 1, but the number of cases caused by another Omicron subvariant called BA.4.6 — which is capable of evading immunity from vaccination and previous infection — is steadily rising. It currently accounts for 13% of the sequenced samples.
The growing number of BA.4.6 cases led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning indicating that Evusheld — the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID-19 prevention in immunocompromised individuals and people who can’t take the COVID-19 vaccine — may be completely ineffective against subvariants like BA.4.6.
Telemedicine Was Made Easy During COVID. Not Any More
Telemedicine exploded in popularity after COVID-19 hit, but limits are returning for care delivered across state lines. That complicates follow-up treatments for some cancer patients. It also can affect other types of care, including mental health therapy and routine doctor check-ins.
Over the past year, nearly 40 states and Washington, DC, have ended emergency declarations that made it easier for doctors to use video visits to see patients in another state, according to the Alliance for Connected Care, which advocates for telemedicine use.
Doctors say the resulting patchwork of regulations creates confusion and has led some practices to shut down out-of-state telemedicine entirely. That leaves follow-up visits, consultations or other care only to patients who have the means to travel for in-person meetings.
Medium COVID Could Be the Most Dangerous COVID
As the pandemic drags on, data have emerged to clarify the dangers posed by COVID across the weeks, months and years that follow an infection. Taken together, their implications are surprising. Some people’s lives are devastated by long COVID; they’re trapped with perplexing symptoms that seem to persist indefinitely. For the majority of vaccinated people, however, the worst complications will not surface in the early phase of the disease, when you’re first feeling feverish and stuffy, nor can the gravest risks be said to be “long term.”
Rather, they emerge during the middle phase of post-infection, a stretch that lasts for about 12 weeks after you get sick. This period of time is so menacing, in fact, that it really ought to have its own, familiar name: medium COVID.
Just how much of a threat is medium COVID? The answer has been obscured, to some extent, by sloppy definitions. A lot of studies blend different, dire outcomes into a single giant bucket called “long COVID.” Illnesses arising in as few as four weeks, along with those that show up many months later, have been considered one and the same.
Long COVID Disables Millions Worldwide, Even as Rates Ease, Study Shows
Long COVID eases with time, according to a study that found about 1% of coronavirus patients had persistent symptoms for a year or more.
In the first rigorous assessment of the magnitude of long COVID on a global scale, researchers found that 6.2% of people who had COVID-19 in the pandemic’s first two years experienced at least one of three main groups of symptoms three months later. Of those patients, 15% were still afflicted after a year, they found.
Although the probability of having chronic health problems from COVID is relatively low, the vast number of cases — at least 670 million worldwide — leaves a substantial burden of disability, said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, where the study was conducted.
Long COVID’s effects are, on average, similar to what occurs after a moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury or complete deafness, said Theo Vos, a professor of health metrics sciences at the university, who led the study.
Swiss Drugs Regulator Approves One of Pfizer’s COVID Booster Shots
Swiss drugs regulator Swissmedic said on Monday it had temporarily approved Pfizer‘s COVID-19 booster shot targeting the original and BA.1 Omicron coronavirus variants.
Swissmedic added that the data currently available to it was not yet sufficient to make a decision on Pfizer’s bivalent booster vaccine targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants.
FDA Expands Use of GSK’s Vaccine During Pregnancy to Prevent Whooping Cough in Infants
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday allowed the use of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK.L) Boostrix vaccine during the third trimester of pregnancy to prevent whooping cough in infants younger than two months of age.
While the FDA’s approval of Boostrix has always included its use during pregnancy to protect the vaccinated individual, the latest decision expands its use to help prevent pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, in infants younger than two months.
The health regulator first approved the vaccine in 2005, for use in adolescents ages 10 years through 18 years as a single-dose shot to prevent tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, and later allowed its use in adults as well as for those aged 65 and older.
CDC Will Stop Issuing Daily Updates of COVID Cases, Deaths + More
CDC Will Stop Issuing Daily Updates of COVID Cases, Deaths
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Anyone who still wants to keep track of U.S. COVID cases and deaths will soon have to wait for the weekly reports. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will stop publishing COVID case and death data on a daily basis and instead issue weekly updates, starting Oct. 20.
The move is in line with efforts to wind down other COVID-related tools on the CDC website. It eases reporting requirements for state and local health departments who can report the information weekly on Wednesdays, the agency said.
The agency is continuing its daily hospitalization reports, which the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services collects. The CDC will take charge of that data in December, and it’s not clear if it will still be published daily, CBS News reported.
Seniors Died From COVID at a Higher Rate Than Any Other Age Group This Summer: Analysis
More seniors than any other age group died from COVID-19 this past summer amid a disease surge fueled by new subvariants, according to a new analysis published Thursday from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The foundation analyzed COVID-19 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and found that death rates rose much faster for Americans older than 65, despite widespread vaccine coverage within the group.
The share of COVID-19 deaths within the older than 65 age group has risen since the beginning of this year, from 24% in January to 40% in September.
U.S. Gave Almost $29 Million to Chinese Entities for Joint Research Since 2015: Report
U.S. government agencies sent almost $29 million in taxpayer dollars “directly to Chinese entities” for joint research over a five-year period ending in 2021, recently released findings show.
From fiscal years 2015 through 2021, “the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], NIH [National Institutes of Health] and DOD [Department of Defense] provided 22 awards totaling $28.9 million directly to Chinese entities, including universities and other research institutions,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said on Sept. 29 about a trove of analyses.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) described such funding as “troubling.”
“China’s deception and stonewalling of the truth behind the origins of COVID-19 has led to millions of senseless deaths and trillions of dollars in economic destruction across the globe,” she said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
While receiving almost $5 million from the NIH and the CDC in recent years, the Chinese CDC had been suppressing information about the COVID-19 outbreak domestically and snubbed U.S. offers of assistance, although any health data would have been crucial to formulate a more effective pandemic containment strategy and minimize the disease’s global spread.
Health Canada Authorizes Pfizer’s Omicron Retooled Booster
Health Canada has approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster vaccine that targets the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the Omicron variant.
The vaccine, which is approved for people at least 12 years old, can be given three to six months after a second dose of the primary vaccine series, or the most recent booster shot.
Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, said on Thursday that people who already had a booster shot of the original mRNA vaccines do not need to get a bivalent booster.
It is the second combination vaccine greenlighted by Health Canada’s vaccine review team, but the first that targets the virus strains that are now most common in Canada. The Moderna combination shot approved five weeks ago targets the original virus and the first Omicron variant, while the Pfizer shot targets the BA.4 and BA.5 strains. The Moderna vaccine is approved for people who are 18 and older.
German COVID Vaccine Developer BioNTech Signs Research Deal With Australia
BioNTech SE, the German biotech that developed a widely used COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer Inc., will set up research and manufacturing centers in Australia based on the same technology, the company and Australian lawmakers said on Friday.
The Nasdaq-listed company (22UAy.DE), and Australia’s Victoria state said they signed a partnership to create a center, which would run clinical research of experimental messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, vaccines and therapies with the aim of attracting experts from around the world.
The partnership would also involve setting up mRNA manufacturing facilities in Melbourne, based on BioNTech’s modular design, the company and the state government said.
Gun Injuries to Kids Rose During Pandemic
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Firearm sales in the United States broke records at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, researchers have found that firearm injuries to children also increased during the pandemic’s first two years compared to the preceding year.
In all, pediatric firearm-related injury cases rose, from 88 in 2019 to 118 in 2020. They continued to be high in 2021, with 115 children injured, the investigators found.
Firearm-related injuries in Black children grew from nearly 31% in 2019 to 40% in 2020 and 48% in 2021. Those cases also showed increases in patients with mental health issues and in injuries where the shooter was a friend.
Amid End to COVID Help, Homelessness Surging in Many Cities
In California’s capital, massive tent encampments have risen along the American River and highway overpasses have become havens for homeless people, whose numbers have jumped a staggering nearly 70% over two years.
Fueled by a long-running housing shortage, rising rent prices and the economic hangover from the pandemic, the overall number of homeless in a federal government report to be released in coming months is expected to be higher than the 580,000 unhoused before the coronavirus outbreak, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said.
The Associated Press tallied results from city-by-city surveys conducted earlier this year and found the number of people without homes is up overall compared with 2020 in areas reporting results so far.
Research has shown places seeing spikes in homelessness often lack affordable housing. Making matters worse, pandemic government relief programs — including anti-eviction measures, emergency rental assistance and a child tax credit that kept people housed who may have been on the streets otherwise — are ending.
COVID Rebound After Pfizer Treatment Likely Due to Robust Immune Response, Study Finds
A rebound of COVID-19 symptoms in some patients after taking Pfizer‘s antiviral Paxlovid may be related to a robust immune response rather than a weak one, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday.
They concluded that taking a longer course of the drug — beyond the recommended five days — was not required to reduce the risk of a recurrence of symptoms as some have suggested, based on an intensive investigation of rebound in eight patients at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center.
All patients in the study had developed robust immune responses, but researchers found higher levels of antibodies in the patients who experienced a rebound.
The team said their data argues against the hypothesis that impaired immune responses are the reason symptoms return in some patients.
COVID Wave Looms in Europe as Booster Campaign Makes Slow Start
A new COVID-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake.
Omicron subvariants BA.4/5 that dominated this summer are still behind the majority of infections, but newer Omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new forms of Omicron are being tracked by scientists, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said this week.
WHO data released late on Wednesday showed that cases in the European Union (EU) reached 1.5 million last week, up 8% from the prior week, despite a dramatic fall in testing. Globally, case numbers continue to decline.
In the week ended Oct. 4, COVID-19 hospital admissions with symptoms jumped nearly 32% in Italy, while intensive care admissions rose about 21%, compared to the week before, according to data compiled by independent scientific foundation Gimbe. Over the same week, COVID hospitalizations in Britain saw a 45% increase versus the week earlier.
Monkeypox Cases Are Down, but Concern Over Intradermal Vaccine Lingers
With many in the gay community clamoring for the monkeypox vaccine this summer, hoping for protection from a virus that causes painful and gruesome lesions, the United States faced a challenge.
In August, the FDA announced that it was issuing an emergency use authorization for the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine to be administered by intradermal injection — delivering the vaccine into the immune cells between the layers of the skin, often in the forearm, rather than a deeper injection into fat or muscle tissue in the shoulder. The method, while used for other vaccinations, had not previously been authorized by the United States for the monkeypox vaccine. It uses a smaller amount of vaccine, meaning one dose could be split among five people.
However, the makeshift vaccination plan has not been without its downsides. The intradermal injection can leave a painful, itchy red mark for weeks, potentially worsening the stigma of an outbreak mostly affecting gay men, and it can cause long-term discoloration or scarring. The FDA’s emergency authorization of the intradermal method largely relied on a single study done in 2015, which showed that intradermal and traditional “subcutaneous” injections of the vaccine produced similar immune responses.
All of which has left some people with lingering concerns about stigma, discomfort and efficacy.
Are Pets at Risk of Catching Monkeypox From Humans?
The risk of people with monkeypox passing the virus to their pets is low, the authors of a new study that found no such transmissions in the United Kingdom have concluded. The study’s findings offer a broader perspective in the wake of two recently reported cases of apparent monkeypox transmission from humans to their pets, including a dog in France and a puppy in Brazil.
Such rare cases tap into fears that the global monkeypox outbreak could spill over from humans and become endemic in new populations of wild animals. Infectious disease experts anticipate that if such animal reservoirs of the virus were established, they could be impossible to eradicate, or at least challenging to control, and could spark new outbreaks among humans.
Epidemiologists have expressed concern that animal-to-human transfers of viruses will only become more common as climate change and human encroachment upon wild areas increasingly bring people into contact with wild animals.
HIV, for example, is believed to have passed from nonhuman primates to humans in western Africa in the early 20th century. SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is thought to have originated in bats in eastern China — although a highly politicized debate still rages over whether the coronavirus might have come from a lab.
86% of Kids Under 17 Have Antibodies From Past COVID Infection, CDC Data Shows + More
86% of Kids Under 17 Have Antibodies From a Past COVID Infection, CDC Data Shows
More than eight in 10 kids under the age of 17 have antibodies from a past COVID-19 infection, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The analysis shows that as of August, 86% of children between 6 months and 17 years old have had at least one COVID infection since the pandemic began.
That number is an increase from data in April when the public health agency found that 75% of people under the age of 17 had been infected with the virus.
“What we have to recognize is this is more of an indication that there’s been a broad spread of this virus in the pediatric community,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an ABC News contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. “And that, you know, the kids are not sheltered from this virus. And we know that in a small number of cases, there are severe impacts.”
Biden’s Operation Warp Speed Revival Stumbles out of the Gate
As COVID’s Omicron wave ebbed earlier this year, top Biden administration health officials began developing a plan to fortify the nation’s defenses against the next potentially dangerous coronavirus strain.
The initiative was envisioned as a revival of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump-era program that paired federal dollars with private sector know-how to deliver the first vaccines in record time. By replicating the formula with a range of new candidates, officials planned to churn out increasingly advanced vaccines and treatments just as fast — and ahead of other nations.
But months later, it’s barely taken off — stymied by fading political interest in prolonging a war against a pandemic that even the president has declared “over.” Mired in a standoff with Republicans over more COVID response money, the administration has yet to invest heavily in any of the promising vaccine targets it’s identified.
The delay has compounded concern inside the White House over Americans’ vulnerability to future variants. More recently, administration officials have grown alarmed that the U.S. suddenly trails rival China in the global pursuit of new scientific breakthroughs aimed at curbing COVID.
Fall COVID Surge Begins in Europe — and U.S. Outlook Already Looks Rough
The dreaded winter COVID wave may already be upon us — and based on early signs, we may be in for a rough time. As people head indoors amid cooling weather, several European countries are seeing upticks in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Though the situation in the U.S. remains quiet for now, trends in the U.S. tend to echo those in Europe.
So far, the rise in cases is driven by a familiar foe: the Omicron subvariant BA.5, which has maintained a relatively long reign as the globally dominant variant. But a thick soup of Omicron subvariants is simmering on the back burner, loaded with sublineages — notably from BA.2. and BA.5 — converging on alarming sets of mutations. Some sublineages — such as BQ.1.1, an offshoot from BA.5, and XBB, derived from BA.2 strains — are the most immune evasive subvariants seen to date.
For now, the sublineages only account for a sliver of the total cases we know about, with BA.5 still taking the lion’s share. But our ability to detect and surveil new subvariants is only a fraction of what it once was.
Many experts expect the next wave to be coming in the weeks ahead — and the best way to protect from a surge in hospitalizations and death is for people to get boosted. But yet another concerning reality is that booster uptake in the U.S. has been and is abysmal. While 68% of the U.S. population has received a full primary series of COVID-19 vaccines, less than half have gotten a single booster. Only 37% of people over the age of 50 have gotten a second booster. And, to date, only 7.6 million Americans have gotten their fall booster — a dose of the new, bivalent booster that, in part, targets BA.5.
Long COVID Is Still Disabling Millions of Americans
Of the nearly 24 million adults in the U.S. who currently have long COVID, more than 80% are having some trouble carrying out daily activities, according to CDC data released Wednesday.
Why it matters: Nearly three years into a pandemic that has left millions newly disabled, medical researchers continue to search for an effective treatment.
The big picture: Long COVID symptoms can include shortness of breath, cognitive difficulties and symptoms that worsen even with minimal physical or mental effort — a primary indicator of chronic fatigue syndrome.
By the numbers: Between Sept. 14 and Sept. 26, more than one in four adults with long COVID reported significant limitations on day-to-day activities, per the CDC data.
U.S. COVID Recovery in ‘Jeopardy’ Unless Poorer Countries Helped, Group Warns
U.S. recovery from the COVID pandemic is in “jeopardy” unless the Biden administration supports making treatment and testing for the disease more readily available to low-income countries, a powerful congressional group has warned Joe Biden.
In a letter to Joe Biden led by congressman Earl Blumenauer, chairman of the subcommittee on trade, the group urged the president to extend a June World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement aimed at easing exports of generic vaccines to treatments and therapeutics.
The letter comes ahead of what is expected to be a contentious meeting of the WTO Council for trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights that starts on Thursday, where the proposals will be discussed.
The proposals are being championed by South Africa and India but face stiff opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and Switzerland and the U.K.
The Monkeypox Virus Is Mutating. Are Scientists Worried?
As researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul were sequencing samples of the monkeypox virus a few months ago, they made a surprising discovery. In one sample collected from an infected person, a large chunk of the virus’s genome was missing, and another chunk had moved to an entirely different spot in the sequence.
Crystal Gigante, a microbiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, was called in to help examine the mutations. She and her colleagues found similar deletions and rearrangements in a handful of other monkeypox genomes collected in the United States, according to a report that they posted on Sept. 17 on the preprint server bioRxiv that has not undergone peer review.
Although scientists aren’t alarmed, they are monitoring the situation carefully to understand why the alterations have appeared, and what they might mean for the global monkeypox outbreak. These mutations are a stark reminder that even poxviruses — which are DNA viruses that tend to evolve more slowly than RNA viruses, such as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus — will change over time, says Elliot Lefkowitz, a computational virologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And the more the monkeypox virus is transmitted between humans, he adds, the more opportunities it will have to evolve.
Breakthrough Monkeypox Cases Seen Weeks After Second Jynneos Dose — However, Most Post-Vaccination Cases in at-Risk Group Occurred Within 14 Days of First Dose
Most cases of monkeypox post-vaccination occurred within 2 weeks of the first Jynneos dose, a single-center study found, but some breakthrough cases developed weeks after a second dose of the vaccine.
Of 90 individuals who tested positive for monkeypox after a single dose of Jynneos at a large monkeypox testing and vaccination site, 77% of the cases occurred within 14 days of the first dose and 14% within 14-28 days of the first dose, reported Aniruddha Hazra, MD, of Howard Brown Health in Chicago, and colleagues.
In the eight cases occurring 28 days after vaccine initiation, five positive tests came back following a second dose of the modified vaccinia Ankara-Bavarian Nordic (MVA-BN) vaccine.
NYC Expands Eligibility for Monkeypox Vaccine; to Open 30,000+ New Appointments
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced Wednesday it is expanding the eligibility for monkeypox vaccination by adopting a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) model by reaching people who may be exposed in the future — all in an attempt to protect more New Yorkers.
The city will open 30,000 new appointments at 4 p.m. Thursday, under new eligibility guidelines.
U.S. to Funnel Recent Uganda Visitors to 5 Airports for Ebola Screening
The Biden administration said Thursday it would begin redirecting U.S.-bound travelers who had been to Uganda within the previous 21 days to five major American airports to be screened for Ebola.
According to Uganda’s Health Ministry, at least nine people had died of the disease in Uganda by Oct. 3, since authorities in the east African nation announced the outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever on Sept. 20.
The travelers need to arrive at New York-John F. Kennedy Newark, Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare or Washington Dulles airports for screening. There is no vaccine for the Sudan strain of the disease behind the latest Uganda infections, triggering fears of a major health crisis in the country of 45 million people.
CDC, WHO, Uganda to Host Regional Meeting as Ebola Spreads
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Uganda next week will host a ministerial meeting on the outbreak of the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus which has no proven vaccine and has caused alarm in the East Africa region.
The current Ebola outbreak in central Uganda has a 69% case fatality rate, which Ogwell called “very high,” and four health workers are among the 30 people who have died. There have been 43 confirmed cases. None have been in the capital, Kampala.
Ugandan scientists and their partners abroad are looking to deploy one of two possible vaccines against the Sudan strain of Ebola, the WHO representative to Uganda told reporters Thursday. But there are only 100 doses of the vaccine from the Sabin Vaccine Insitute, said Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam.
COVID Vaccination Likely Cause of Man’s Acquired Hemophilia A + More
COVID Vaccination Likely Cause of Man’s Acquired Hemophilia A
Hemophilia News Today reported:
COVID-19 vaccines, because they work to stimulate the immune system, may be an emerging cause of autoimmune conditions like acquired hemophilia A, according to a case report. “This report aims to highlight the risk of … [acquired hemophilia A] following an immune stimulus, thus improving our knowledge regarding possible vaccination-related adverse events,” the researchers wrote.
The case, involving a man who developed the bleeding condition after receiving the vaccine and was initially treated improperly, also highlights the importance of educating physicians about this potential side effect. The case report, “Acquired hemophilia A following COVID-19 vaccination — The importance of prompt diagnosis: A case report,” was published in the journal Transfusion and Apheresis Science.
Researchers reported a case of acquired hemophilia A following COVID-19 vaccination in a 71-year-old-man admitted to their hospital in Italy. The man had previously been admitted to another emergency center with symptoms of arm pain and swelling associated with limited movement and petechiae (tiny spots of bleeding under the skin). He sought help eight days after a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Fauci Says He Should Have Been ‘More Careful’ on Pandemic Messaging: ‘No One’s Perfect’
Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said he should have been “much more careful” in his messaging on COVID-19 early on in the pandemic, including doing a better job of conveying the uncertainty present at that time.
Fauci, who will be stepping down from government work in December, reflected on the first months of the coronavirus outbreak while speaking at a seminar hosted by the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism. The longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases spoke with Washington Post national health reporter Dan Diamond.
“When I go back in the early months, I probably should have tried to be much, much more careful in getting the message to repeat — the uncertainty of what we’re going through,” Fauci said.
Diamond asked Fauci if he would sit for investigations next year if he was called by a Republican-controlled committee. “Of course, I have no problem. I am a big believer in oversight, and I have testified before Congress literally hundreds of times,” Fauci responded.
‘Like Copying a Louis Vuitton Handbag’: Big Pharma Hits out at Africa’s Replica COVID Vaccine
When news broke that scientists had developed an effective vaccine against COVID, Emile Hendricks was living in a deprived suburb of Cape Town and studying for a degree in biotechnology.
He thought he and his community would not have access to such a vaccine, or at the very least would be at the back of the queue. He was right. By mid-April 2021, more than 32 million people in the U.K. had received the first dose of a COVID vaccine, compared with just 300,000 in South Africa, where the rollout was plagued by problems.
Two years later, Hendricks is a research technologist at Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a Cape Town pharmaceutical company, and part of a team that has successfully reproduced small quantities of Moderna’s mRNA COVID vaccine as part of a plan backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop vaccines in the global south.
Its freedom to operate is also under threat. Moderna has filed several patents in South Africa and has refused to cooperate and share technology with the hub in Africa, likening the replica vaccine to a “copy of a Louis Vuitton handbag.” In addition, Moderna is suing fellow mRNA vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and BioNTech, which has raised fears that it could enforce patents against the hub regarding any future vaccines it may develop for illnesses other than COVID.
Another COVID Variant Could Emerge This Winter, Fauci Says
NIAID director Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that “we should not be surprised” if a new COVID-19 variant emerges this winter. Driving the news: “We should anticipate that we very well may get another variant that would emerge that would elude the immune response that we’ve gotten from infection and/or from vaccination,” Fauci said during an event with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.
Fauci said we’re currently moving “in the right direction.” But, but, but: “We are entering into the winter months, where no matter what the respiratory disease is, there’s always a risk of an uptick.”
What he’s saying: Fauci, who has been Biden‘s chief medical adviser and is retiring from government service later this year, was cautious when asked if he thinks an end of the pandemic is in sight. “I think it would be a bit cavalier to all of a sudden say we’re completely through with it,” he said.
The big picture: COVID-19 cases have been trending downward in recent months. But winter will push more people inside. Meanwhile, scientists have been tracking three new sub-variants in recent weeks.
Here’s What Might Happen the Second — or Third — Time You Get COVID, Experts Say: ‘There’s No Guarantee’
As the weather grows colder, you may find yourself experiencing a second — or even third — round of COVID infection. That prompts a few questions: Will getting COVID again be similar to my previous experience? Will it be any different than last time? Will my symptoms be more or less severe?
The answer to all of them, experts say: It’s complicated. It depends on how long it’s been since you last had COVID, your risk of severe disease and how long it’s been since you were last vaccinated — if you’re vaccinated at all.
“With reinfection, it’s kind of all over the map,” Dr. Gabe Kelen, chair of emergency medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, tells CNBC Make It. “By and large, it seems milder. But there’s no guarantee.”
If you recover from a COVID infection, you’ll emerge with antibodies in your system that “keep a lookout for a future infection,” says Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine. Not all of them will help your body fight the next infection, but the ones that do can decrease the amount or severity of your symptoms.
Pfizer COVID Vaccine Clears Japan Panel for Use With Young Children
A Japanese health ministry panel on Wednesday recommended approving Pfizer Inc.’s (PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine for children as young as six months old.
Japan in January expanded the use of the vaccine to those as young as five years old. Last month, health authorities started dispensing Pfizer and Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O) booster shots that target the Omicron variant of the virus.
The panel also recommended approval of a version of the Pfizer vaccine that protects against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron. Moderna said earlier on Wednesday it was seeking Japanese approval of its own subvariant shot.
AstraZeneca’s Evusheld Loses Potency Against New Omicron Subvariant, FDA Warns
With the coronavirus rapidly evolving, there is little longevity for finely tuned antibodies. It was that way for successful but short-lived treatments from Regeneron, GSK and Eli Lilly. Now, for AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, the lights may be turning red.
Monday, amid reports that the antibody combo is ineffective against the latest subvariant of Omicron, BA.4.6, the FDA has updated its fact sheet for Evusheld, saying it can increase the risk of COVID-19 infection for variants that the product does not neutralize.
With BA.4.6 spreading in the U.S. and beginning to take hold in Europe, Evusheld’s days as an option for prevention of infection could be numbered.
The BA.5 subvariant is still the dominant version of the coronavirus globally, accounting for 85% of current infections, an AstraZeneca spokesman pointed out. The company also adds that BA.4.6 represents just 6.2% of infections around the world and is “growing slowly.”
Most Americans Don’t Plan to Get a Flu Shot This Season — Lots of Them Say They’ll Mask to Avoid Germs Instead
Only 49% of U.S. adults plan to get their flu shot this flu season, according to a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID). Even 1 in 5 of those who are at higher risk for influenza-related complications say they won’t get vaccinated.
Instead, more U.S. adults are gravitating towards masking as a form of protection against the flu. A higher percentage of Americans (58%) plan to mask at least sometimes this flu season than intend to get vaccinated.
Here are some of the top reasons adults gave for not getting vaccinated this season: 41% think flu shots don’t work very well, 39% are concerned about the vaccine’s side effects, 28% say they never get the flu, 24% are concerned about getting the flu from the shot and 20% do not think influenza is a serious illness.
The altered approach this flu season may be partly due to the timing of the Omicron-specific booster and people’s concerns with getting both the updated COVID booster and the flu shot. Just 32% of U.S. adults are very confident that it is safe to receive the vaccines at the same time, the survey shows.
Health Officials Warn Severe Flu Season Is Coming, Urge Vaccinations
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months and older to also get their flu shot. Public health officials are worried about a false sense of security after two milder flu seasons due to COVID precautions.
Australia, which experiences winter ahead of the U.S., just had its worst flu season in five years.
Less than half of U.S. adults plan to get a flu shot this year and just a third feel safe getting a flu shot and COVID-19 vaccine at the same time, according to a National Foundation for Infectious Diseases survey.