WHO Grants Emergency Listing for Japan’s LC16 Mpox Vaccine
The World Health Organization announced on Nov. 19 that it has granted emergency use listing for Japan’s LC16m8 mpox vaccine, the second mpox vaccine to receive the designation since the group declared a public health emergency of international concern regarding outbreaks in Africa.
The step paves the way for countries to receive doses and for children, hit hard by the virus in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi, to receive doses. Japan had stockpiled the vaccine, which was used in 1974 to vaccinate children.
Japan had earlier announced the donation of 3.05 million doses to the DRC, along with needles used for vaccine administration, the largest to date amid the current outbreaks in Africa.
60% of Americans Say They Probably Won’t Get an Updated COVID-19 Vaccine
Six-in-ten Americans say they will probably not get an updated 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, according to an October Pew Research Center survey. Smaller shares say they probably will get an updated vaccine (24%) or have already received one (15%).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the updated vaccine to everyone ages 6 months and older ahead of the fall and winter months to help protect from severe disease and hospitalization.
Views of the updated vaccine are sharply divided across partisan lines, with Democrats and those who lean to the Democratic Party being more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say they will get the vaccine. The partisan divide is particularly large among adults ages 65 and older — one of the groups most at risk for severe illness.
Mutated Bird Flu Case in California Puts Humans at Increased Risk, so Which Companies Are Developing Vaccines?
A child in Alameda County, California is the latest case of bird flu in the U.S.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the total case count in the U.S. stands at 54. Thirty-one cases are attributed to the dairy industry and 21 to the poultry industry. Two of the case’s causes are unknown.
Companies are racing to develop vaccines, but observers worry that the incoming Trump administration’s selection of vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services could put a potential treatment in the crosshairs.
Health researchers are exploring the idea that the virus was spread via wild birds. The California child’s genetic sequencing has not been released; it is therefore unclear if it is of wild bird or dairy origins.
Meanwhile, a teenager in Canada who was hospitalized with the bird flu possibly showed signs of mutation, the Guardian reports. Experts are reportedly concerned that a mutation in the virus would make it easier to spread, making the odds of a widespread outbreak more likely.
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Global Antibiotic Consumption Continues to Climb, Study Finds
A new analysis of pharmaceutical sales data from 67 countries indicates that antibiotic consumption has risen by more than 20% globally since 2016 but would likely have been much higher had the COVID-19 pandemic not occurred.
The study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers with One Health Trust, found that total antibiotic consumption for countries with available data rose 29.5 to 34.3 billion defined daily doses from 2016 to 2023 (a 16.3% increase) and the overall consumption rate rose 10.6%.
When the researchers extrapolated antibiotic use for countries that didn’t provide data, they estimated a 20.9% increase in total antibiotic consumption and 13.1% increase in the consumption rate.
The increase was lower than the 35.5% increase the researchers found when they looked at global antibiotic consumption during the previous 7-year period (2008 through 2015). But that’s because antibiotic consumption in the 67 countries with available pharmaceutical data, particularly the higher-income countries, saw significant declines in outpatient antibiotic use during the first year of the pandemic.
Those declines have been attributed in part to masking, stay-at-home policies and other SARS-CoV-2 reduction measures that may have reduced the transmission of respiratory pathogens that fuel outpatient antibiotic use.
