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Poll: Only 45% of Older Adults Will Get Updated COVID Vaccines
Only 45% of Americans age 50 and older say they’re likely to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine this season, according to a poll today from the University of Michigan.
The poll shows many at high risk of severe illness appear unlikely to seek the vaccine, and interest in an updated vaccine varies widely by age-group, education level, and other factors.
The results come from the National Poll on Healthy Aging conducted in August. At the time of polling, new COVID-19 vaccines were not yet widely available, but they had been approved for use and endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among adults 75 and older, 59% said they were likely to get the updated COVID-19 shot, with 49% of them saying they’re very likely and 10% saying they’re somewhat likely. Among adults 65 to 74, 51% said they were likely to get the vaccine.
COVID Treatment Recall Issued After Glass Found in Drug
Amidst a resurgence of COVID-19 cases across the U.S., pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of its antiviral drug Veklury, commonly known as remdesivir, in cooperation with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
The recall comes after the discovery of glass particles in vials of the medication, raising concerns about patient safety at a time when the drug’s importance in treating severe COVID-19 cases is once again being underscored.
The affected lot, identified as 47035CFA, was distributed nationwide in the United States beginning July 16, 2024.
This FDA-monitored recall coincides with data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing high levels of COVID-19 viral activity in wastewater across the country, despite a recent decrease in positive cases.
US to Donate 1 Million Mpox Vaccine Doses to Halt Outbreak in Africa
U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday the donation of one million mpox vaccine doses and at least $500 million to African countries to support their response to the outbreak.
Biden made the announcement at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and called on other countries to follow suit, confirming Reuters’ earlier reporting.
“We must now move quickly to face mpox,” Biden said.
In August, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak of the viral infection in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to neighboring countries and beyond, including India, raising alarm.
“It wouldn’t be a huge surprise if there were a case in the United States, either,” a U.S. official said, noting that recent cuts in pandemic support by Congress may hamper a domestic response.
India Confirms First Mpox Case in Current Outbreak
India has reported its first case with the new mpox strain that has triggered a public health emergency alert by the World Health Organization (WHO), Reuters reports.
Called clade 1b, the new variant is highly-transmissible and has been linked to the mpox outbreak in Africa.
According to media reports, the strain has been detected in a 38-year-old man from the southern state of Kerala who returned from Dubai recently.
Mpox, previously known as monkey pox, is a contagious virus that can cause painful skin lesions.
The WHO declared mpox, which used to be called monkeypox, a public health emergency in Africa in August.
Since then, the more dangerous variant of the virus has spread to countries outside the African continent, including Sweden, Thailand and Pakistan.
Evidence Growing for COVID Antivirals to Cut Poor Outcomes, Long COVID, Experts Say
A recently published systematic review and meta-analysis found no evidence that the antiviral drugs nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) and molnupiravir (Lagevrio) help prevent COVID-19 hospitalization, death, or persistent symptoms, results that the authors say call for reassessment of the role that oral antivirals play in the context of currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants and population immunity from vaccination, infection, or both.
The study, published on Sept. 7 in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, isn’t the first to draw such conclusions, but some experts have cast doubt on its methodology and conclusions.
On Dec. 12, 2023, the researchers pooled and analyzed the results of 23 randomized trials (14 published, including a RECOVERY Trial preprint) on the efficacy of Paxlovid or molnupiravir against severe COVID-19 or long COVID.
The team estimated the relative risks of reducing death and hospitalization after treatment with molnupiravir and Paxlovid, respectively, at 0.62 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15 to 2.53) and 0.33 (95% CI, 0.03 to 3.35) amid the Omicron, Delta/Omicron, Delta, or Alpha variant eras.
Novo Nordisk CEO Prepares to Defend Ozempic, Wegovy US Pricing at Senate Hearing
After circling Novo Nordisk and its high GLP-1 drug prices for months, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee will soon get their long-awaited chance to grill into Novo’s CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.
Jorgensen will face questions from the committee at a Tuesday hearing titled, “Why Is Novo Nordisk Charging Americans with Diabetes and Obesity Outrageously High Prices for Ozempic and Wegovy?” after agreeing to testify following Sanders’ threat of a subpoena.
The HELP committee investigated Novo’s pricing earlier this year, finding that the company charges $969 per month in the U.S. for type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic, $155 in Canada, $122 in the company’s home country of Denmark and $59 in Germany.
Monthly list prices for Ozempic’s obesity counterpart Wegovy stand at $1,349 in the U.S., $140 in Germany and $92 in the U.K., according to the lawmakers.
Google Trends Reveals Surge in ADHD Medication Searches During COVID-19 Pandemic
In a study published in Brain Medicine, UCI researchers have uncovered a striking correlation between internet searches for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD medications and actual prescription rates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This finding opens up new possibilities for using online search data to predict and prevent prescription drug shortages.
The study, “Internet searches for ADHD medications surged during the COVID-19 pandemic,” led by Dr. Steven Grieco from the University of California, Irvine, analyzed Google Trends data spanning 20 years, with a particular focus on the period following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Jan. 2020.
The researchers found a significant surge in searches for ADHD medications during this time, mirroring the known increase in ADHD drug prescriptions reported in other studies.
“Our findings suggest that Google Trends data could serve as a real-time proxy for prescription drug usage, especially during rapidly changing public health situations,” says Dr. Grieco. “This approach could be invaluable when actual prescription data is not immediately available.”
‘Drug-Resistant Typhoid Is the Final Warning Sign’: Disease Spreads in Pakistan as Antibiotics Fail
From his sickbed, eight-year-old Ukasha could see his siblings play with a ball in the courtyard.
His head hurt and his body felt too heavy to move. Ukasha had typhoid fever — an illness he should have recovered from in days. It had been a month.
At its worst, typhoid can kill. Ukasha’s family were anxious, even moving his bed outside to give him fresh air and sunlight.
Now he could sit up, smile at the view in front of him and even finally eat his favorite food, eggs.
His classmate, 12-year-old AbuZar, had also been in bed for months with typhoid. At the height of the infection, he woke up in the middle of the night, burning hot and drenched in sweat.
Children across the village — on the outskirts of Peshawar, northern Pakistan — had been falling ill.
Typhoid, also known as enteric fever, is an infection caused by contaminated food or water.
If left untreated, it kills one in five. But the cure is a simple course of antibiotics.
Most people, if they get the drugs promptly, should start recovering within a few days.
But the antibiotics used to cure typhoid are now failing. The bacteria, Salmonella typhi, have developed resistance to the antibiotics meant to kill them. It’s a pattern repeated across the world; the problem of resistant infections is global and borderless.
