Author: Claudinne Miller
WHO signs international pandemic response treaty without the U.S.
Washington Post As countries overwhelmingly passed a WHO global pandemic agreement, top U.S. health official Robert F. Kennedy Jr. invited states to reject the “moribund WHO.” After three years of intensive negotiations, the World Health Organization on Tuesday adopted the world’s first agreement on how to cooperate and respond to future pandemics — without the support […]
May 20, 2025
Long covid patients are desperate for treatments. These trials may help.
Washington Post Five years since the pandemic began, millions of people are still grappling with long covid, even as new patients are joining their ranks. “Considering how far along we are and how tens of millions of people are suffering, we’ve done very little,” said Eric Topol, a professor of translational medicine and the executive vice president of Scripps […]
May 20, 2025
FDA Officials Detail Plan to Limit COVID Shots
MedPageToday FDA officials have outlined their new approach to COVID-19 vaccine approvals, allowing immunogenicity endpoints for high-risk groups, while calling for randomized controlled trials for those at lower risk. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, detailed the new framework in a “Sounding Board” […]
May 20, 2025
Physicians Sound Alarm: Vaccine Misinformation and Policy Failures Threaten US Public Health
Infection Control Today We find ourselves at a pivotal moment in public health. On one side, we are experiencing an extraordinary wave of vaccine innovation, offering new platforms, protections, and avenues for disease prevention. Conversely, we face an unprecedented decline in public trust. Vaccine misinformation has transitioned from a fringe concern to a dominant force […]
May 14, 2025
What to Know About the Hepatitis A Outbreak in L.A. County
NYT A highly contagious liver infection is surging among groups who are not typically at risk. At least seven people have died. Public health officials in Los Angeles County have declared an outbreak of hepatitis A, a highly contagious liver infection driven by a virus that can, in rare cases, cause severe illness. The condition, […]
May 14, 2025
New model reveals H5N1 is spreading undetected in US dairy herds
Medical News A powerful simulation of H5N1 transmission across 35,974 US herds shows that the virus is far more widespread than reported, raising urgent calls for better farm surveillance and stronger disease control. In a recent study in the journal Nature Communications, researchers developed and tested a novel stochastic metapopulation transmission model to predict the scale, […]
May 14, 2025
How Close Is H5N1 to Reaching the Goal?
ISDE If H5N1 were on a soccer team, as one expert described it, it just might be able to score a goal: human-to-human transmission. With each mammal that becomes infected with H5N1 avian influenza virus, the concern for a human pandemic grows, especially since it has appeared in dairy cows because these animals do not normally get influenza (Viruses 2019;11[6]:561). […]
May 14, 2025
Discover What’s Next in Bird Flu: Must-Know Lessons from Last Year
Dairy Herd As the dairy industry moves into the second year of combating H5N1, maintaining momentum and commitment to biosecurity remains crucial. The past year has been a tumultuous period for the dairy industry, grappling with the onset of the H5N1 bird flu virus in dairy cattle. Dairy farmers have significantly strengthened biosecurity measures, and […]
May 14, 2025
Bird flu detection in tigress after her death prompts Indian state to shut down zoos
AA.com Uttar Pradesh state government orders closure of zoos in Lucknow and Kanpur, a day after similar precautionary measures implemented in Gorakhpur and Etawah following discovery of bird flu in tigress. The northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh closed its zoos to the public for a week on Wednesday, a day after bird flu was […]
May 14, 2025
USDA declares Vermont dairy farms are ‘unaffected’ by the bird flu epidemic: How they know
Burlington Press Vermont dairy farmers have achieved what the Agency of Agriculture called a “critical benchmark” from the U.S. Department of Agriculture − a declaration by USDA that Vermont is unaffected by bird flu, according to a news release. This winter, the Agency of Agriculture began a new milk sampling program mandated by the USDA to identify avian influenza-infected dairy […]
May 14, 2025