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Finland to Offer Bird Flu Vaccine to Select Groups of People, a Possible Global First
Finland is preparing to offer vaccines to people at risk of exposure to an avian influenza strain spreading among farmed and wild animals, health officials there said, potentially becoming the first country to take such a step as concerns about the threat the virus poses to people intensify.
The vaccine campaign will be limited, with doses set to be available to groups including poultry farmers, veterinarians, scientists who study the virus, and people who work on fur farms housing animals like mink and fox and where there have been outbreaks.
In an email, Mia Kontio, a health security official at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, told STAT the country was waiting for 20,000 doses to arrive, but planned to administer them “as soon as the vaccines are in the country.”
“The concern here is about the animal-human interface,” said Marc Lacey, the global executive director for pandemic at CSL Seqirus, the maker of several H5 vaccines, including the one Finland is planning on using.
Other countries are discussing deploying H5 vaccines or are working to secure supplies, Lacey said. The U.S., for example, last week hired CSL Seqirus to build up the number of H5 flu vaccine doses it has available. But Finland was the first country he knew of that actually planned to use the vaccine, at least in recent years outside research studies.
COVID Shots Should Target Variants With JN.1 Lineage in 2024-25 Campaign, U.S. FDA Advisers Say
Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday unanimously voted in favor of recommending that COVID-19 vaccines for 2024-25 should target a strain within the lineage of the JN.1 variant that has been dominant this year.
All 16 voting members of the panel recommended that the FDA ask companies to target the JN.1 variant or a strain within its lineage when the companies update their vaccines for the fall campaign.
Shares of Novavax (NVAX.O), were up 20% in afternoon trade on Wednesday, while Moderna (MRNA.O), was up 4%. Pfizer (PFE.N), was marginally down.
Pfizer and partner BioNTech (22UAy.DE), will be ready to supply their updated vaccines immediately upon approval, while Moderna and Novavax forecast a timeline for August, the companies said.
A Shot in the Arm That Can Help Fight Cancer? How Vaccine Trials Are Showing Promise.
Watching his brother slowly die was enough to convince Filko Prugo he didn’t want to go the same way. He was willing to do whatever he could to ensure his three children would avoid that fate, too.
So, among other things, the New York City resident volunteered for a research trial, testing an experimental vaccine for people like him, who carry an extra genetic risk for certain cancers. The vaccine, which he received four times, will hopefully keep him from developing prostate, breast or pancreatic cancer.
If the vaccine works and doesn’t cause other safety problems — and so far, it hasn’t — it will be tested in more people and over longer periods. In the meantime, vaccines that help prevent cancer recurrences are progressing with an advance in melanoma vaccines announced on Monday.
Long-term, the vision is to prevent nearly all cancers, a Holy Grail that researcher Dr. Susan Domchek and others have been working toward for decades. She says it will likely take decades more to achieve fully.
As Mpox Cases Rise, Experts Urge Complete, 2-Part Vaccinations
The number of U.S. mpox cases has more than doubled compared with last year, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been urging clinicians across states to encourage vaccinations for those at risk.
As of May 25, the nation had seen a roughly 150% increase in cases of the disease formerly known as monkeypox — from 434 at that time last year to 1,089 this year, according to the CDC. About a third of the cases are in New York State, New York City (which the CDC reports separately), New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The CDC has warned that low vaccination rates among those groups with the highest risk of mpox exposure could lead to a resurgence of the disease.
In reports last month, the CDC warned of a heightened global threat of a deadlier strain of mpox that is devastating the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus is endemic. That strain hasn’t been detected in the United States, but the agency and clinicians are on alert for possible cases in travelers from the country.
Whooping Cough Cases on the Rise: What to Know About Symptoms, Vaccines, More
Cases of whooping cough are popping up throughout the country and current case counts are nearly three times higher than at this time last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC says that it usually takes 5 to 10 days for symptoms to appear after exposure to the bacteria, and sometimes symptoms don’t develop for as long as three weeks.
The CDC says babies and children younger than 7 years old receive DTaP, while older children and adults receive Tdap. The agency recommends whooping cough vaccination for all babies and children, preteens and pregnant women.
Adults who have never received one should also get a Tdap shot, according to the CDC.
CDC Endorses Prophylactic Antibiotics to Reduce STIs in High-Risk Groups
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finalized its guidelines for post-exposure prophylaxis against bacterial sexually transmitted infections on Tuesday. For groups at higher risk of contracting syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, the agency now recommends taking doxycycline, an antibiotic, within 72 hours of having sex.
Doxycycline has been used to prevent malaria infection both before and after exposure, but this is the first time the antibiotic has been used prophylactically against STIs.
“Doxy PEP represents the first new STI prevention tool in decades, at a time when innovation in the nation’s fight against STIs is desperately needed,” the CDC wrote in the guideline announcement. The spread of syphilis in the United States, in particular, has been cause for concern in recent years, as cases reach levels unseen since the 1950s.
AI Used to Predict Potential New Antibiotics in Groundbreaking Study
A new study used machine learning to predict potential new antibiotics in the global microbiome, which study authors say marks a significant advance in the use of artificial intelligence in antibiotic resistance research.
The report, published Wednesday in the journal Cell, details the findings of scientists who used an algorithm to mine the “entirety of the microbial diversity that we have on earth — or a huge representation of that — and find almost 1 million new molecules encoded or hidden within all that microbial dark matter”, said César de la Fuente, an author of the study and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. De la Fuente directs the Machine Biology Group, which aims to use computers to accelerate discoveries in biology and medicine.
The research is urgent to public health, the author said, because antimicrobial resistance caused more than 1.2 million deaths in 2019. That number could increase to 10 million deaths annually by 2050, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
While De la Fuente said he sees the study, which produced the “largest antibiotic discovery effort ever”, as a watershed moment in the potential benefits of artificial intelligence for research, he acknowledged that bad actors could potentially “develop AI models to design toxins.”
Britain Poised to Favor Lilly’s Weight-Loss Drug Over Novo’s
Eli Lilly & Co.’s Mounjaro is being recommended for weight loss for some U.K. patients with obesity and could potentially be easier to access on the National Health Service than Novo Nordisk A/S’s hit treatment Wegovy.
Patients with a body mass index of at least 35 and at least one weight-related co-morbidity should take Mounjaro, according to draft guidance issued by the U.K.’s drug cost regulator.
People with a lower BMI threshold from several ethnic backgrounds could also take tirzepatide — known as Mounjaro in the U.K. and Zepbound in the U.S. — it said.
