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Bill Gates, Whose Foundation Funds Polio Vaccines, Warns That the Disease’s Reemergence in New York Is ‘a Threat to Us All’
A once-eradicated disease has reemerged in New York, and it’s spooking health officials and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.
On Aug. 4, New York health authorities announced they had detected polio in wastewater samples from two counties north of New York City. Officials called the results, along with a confirmed case of polio in New York’s Rockland County in July, the “tip of the iceberg” for a wider polio outbreak of the disease that can cause paralysis.
Gates — a longtime champion of polio eradication — weighed in Monday, calling the news an “urgent reminder” that “until we #EndPolio for good, it remains a threat to us all,” on Twitter.
“The global eradication strategy must be fully supported to protect people everywhere,” wrote Gates, a Microsoft co-founder and the world’s fifth-richest man with a net worth of $118 billion.
Noses Might Be Kids’ Secret Weapon Against COVID
U.S. News & World Report reported:
This discovery is nothing to sniff at. The linings of kids’ noses are better able than those of adults to guard against SARS-CoV-2 infection, Australian researchers report.
“Children have a lower COVID-19 infection rate and milder symptoms than adults, but the reasons for this have been unknown,” said study co-author Kirsty Short, of the University of Queensland. “We’ve shown the lining of children’s noses has a more pro-inflammatory response to the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 than adult noses.”
She said researchers found major differences by age when comparing participants’ responses to COVID variants. They recently published their findings in the journal PLOS Biology.
For the study, they exposed samples of nasal lining cells from 23 healthy children and 15 healthy adults to SARS-CoV-2. The virus replicated less effectively in the children’s cells and the antiviral response was greater, researchers found.
Novavax Tumbles 31% as Waning COVID Vaccine Demand Hits Revenue Forecast
U.S. vaccine maker Novavax slumped nearly 31% on Tuesday as falling demand for its COVID-19 shot from low- and middle-income nations led the company to cut its annual revenue expectation by half.
Demand for its vaccine is also waning in the United States, where it was authorized for use among adults last month and was expected to be preferred by the skeptics of messenger RNA-based shots from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.
The company now expects 2022 revenue between $2 billion and $2.3 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $4 billion to $5 billion when it was hoping to benefit from the demand for its shots as part of the COVAX vaccine sharing program.
Why Tween Girls Especially Are Struggling so Much
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health, as rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts skyrocketed during the pandemic. But youth mental health had been deteriorating for some time before the pandemic, as psychologists like me have been noticing for at least 10 years.
There is no shortage of possible causes: Overparenting, screens and social media, cutthroat academic and sports competition, political acrimony, social injustice, climate concerns, gun violence and virtual learning among others. What gets obscured when we lump all youths together, though, is that certain demographic groups are especially vulnerable to psychological problems and may disproportionately account for the overall trend.
In my practice and those of my colleagues, it is tween girls from ages 10 to 14 who have struggled more than in the past. The belief has long been that middle school is the hardest period to get through, especially for girls, but a confluence of more recent societal and biological trends has led to a perfect storm for tween girls.
A recent study of 10- to 15-year-old British girls, for instance, found that behavioral difficulties and life dissatisfaction increased more among this group of girls than boys during the pandemic, compared to the pre-pandemic period. Another study, with Canadian and Australian girls, reported more anxiety and depression, relative to boys, during the same time.
U.S. to Buy Siga’s IV Drug Worth $26 Million to Fight Monkeypox Outbreak
The U.S. government will buy Siga Technologies Inc’s (SIGA.O) $26-million worth of intravenous formulation of antiviral drug Tpoxx, the company said on Tuesday, as the country fights an outbreak of monkeypox cases.
The company plans to deliver by next year the order for the IV treatment, which would be a vital option for patients unable to swallow the oral pill as monkeypox symptoms include rashes and blisters in the mouth.
The oral and intravenous formulations of Tpoxx are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of smallpox but do not yet have clearance to treat monkeypox.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided guidance for its use under ‘expanded access’ as an investigational drug.
Cash-Rich Pfizer Snaps up Global Blood Therapeutics for $5.4 Billion
Pfizer — cash-rich thanks to its coronavirus vaccine — is bringing Global Blood Therapeutics into the fold under a $5.4 billion all-cash deal announced Monday.
The acquisition of the maker of Oxbryta, one of the few treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sickle cell disease, is the latest blockbuster deal for the pharmaceutical giant.
In March, Pfizer shelled out $6.7 billion for Arena Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on immuno-inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease. More recently, it spent $11.6 billion to swallow up Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding, the maker of treatments for acute migraine headaches.
Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said the latest deal puts resources behind new treatments for an underserved community of patients.
Pfizer Enlists Children and Adults for Lyme Disease Vaccine in a Late Stage Clinical Trial
Pfizer and Valneva, a French pharmaceutical company, announced they are recruiting approximately 6,000 people for a late-stage clinical of a vaccine meant to protect against Lyme disease.
Participants will include adults and children aged five and older in “highly endemic” regions in Europe and the U.S. for Lyme disease, the drugmaker said. Candidates will receive doses of a VLA15, or a placebo, along with a booster dose or additional placebo.
If Pfizer‘s and Valneva vaccine development succeeds, the vaccine could become human inoculation approved federally in the U.S. for Lyme disease since Lymeriz was discontinued in 2002.
The company estimates they may be able to submit the vaccine for approval in the U.S. and Europe by 2025 if Phase 3 of the vaccine trial is successful. Pfizer vowed to pay Valneva $25 million if the Phase 3 study is initiated.
‘We Don’t Even Agree on How to Define It yet’: It’s Year Three of the Pandemic and Scientists Still Know Very Little About Long COVID
We’ve entered year three of the pandemic, and experts still know very little about long COVID, including how to cure its symptoms.
On July 20 and 21, the Global Virus Network hosted the first-ever conference devoted solely to the science of long COVID. There, scientists spoke openly about what is known about the mysterious condition and the questions that remain.
At this stage, even providing an estimate of how many people have long COVID is tough because symptoms vary, says Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was one of the conference’s panelists.
COVID Sewage Surveillance Labs Join the Hunt for Monkeypox
The same wastewater surveillance techniques that have emerged as a critical tool in the early detection of COVID-19 outbreaks are being adapted for use in monitoring the startling spread of monkeypox across the San Francisco Bay Area and some other U.S. communities.
Before the COVID pandemic, wastewater sludge was thought to hold promise as an early indicator of community health threats, in part because people can excrete genetic evidence of infectious diseases in their feces, often before they develop symptoms of illness.
Israel has for decades monitored wastewater for polio. But before COVID, such risk monitoring in the U.S. was limited largely to academic pursuits.
With the onset of COVID, a research collaboration that involves scientists at Stanford University, the University of Michigan and Emory University pioneered efforts to recalibrate the surveillance techniques for detection of the COVID-19 virus, marking the first time that wastewater has been used to track a respiratory disease.
Colleges, Universities Across Illinois Begin Monkeypox Prep With Students Set to Return This Month
With students returning to campuses in just a couple of weeks, universities and colleges across the state are beginning to pull from COVID-19 response plans to prepare for the spreading monkeypox virus, which could pose a unique risk to students because they live in close quarters and often have heightened sexual contact, experts say.
“We have to be concerned about monkeypox on college campuses,” said Dr. Emily Landon, University of Chicago Medicine’s executive director for infection prevention and control. “Monkeypox spreads through close, physical contact, and there’s a lot of social and sexual networks in colleges.”
Limited Monkeypox Vaccine Supply Would Be Stretched Under FDA Plan
Biden administration officials are set to announce Tuesday a new strategy to split monkeypox vaccine doses in hopes of vaccinating up to five times as many people against the virus, according to officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
The strategy, first described publicly by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf last week, would allow the Biden administration to stretch its limited supply of monkeypox vaccines by changing how those shots are administered.
Rather than inject doses of Jynneos subcutaneously, a traditional way of delivering vaccines into the fatty tissue under the skin, the doses would instead be injected under the top layer of the skin.
The change in injection method would maximize the immune reaction generated by the vaccine and allow U.S. officials to only administer one-fifth of the original dose, Califf told reporters last Thursday, stressing that the approach would not compromise safety or efficacy.
CDC Sends Team to New York to Investigate Polio Case
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has deployed a federal team to New York to investigate the case of polio detected in Rockland County.
The team will also help administer vaccinations in the county.
It’s unclear how long the CDC will remain in the county or if the findings will be released to the public. On July 21, the New York State Health Department announced a patient in Rockland County had contracted a case of vaccine-derived polio, the first case in the United States in nearly a decade.
