Author: Shannon Becker
Why It Was Easier to Curb Monkeypox Than Covid
(NYT) The city has pulled back its monkeypox vaccination vans as the number of cases dropped sharply. A dangerous virus, monkeypox, arrived in New York City in May, shortly before the World Health Organization declared it a “public health emergency of international concern.” That designation that had been in effect for only two other diseases, […]
Nov 21, 2022
‘Verified’ anti-vax accounts proliferate as Twitter struggles to police content
(Guardian) Platform’s paid verification system is being used to give sense of validity to accounts pushing health misinformation. Verified accounts are frequently seen as reliable and trustworthy, and Twitter’s algorithm gives them a higher ranking in search results, replies and follow recommendations.
Nov 21, 2022
RSV, covid and flu push hospitals to the brink — and it may get worse
(Washington Post) Hospitals across the United States are overwhelmed. The combination of a swarm of respiratory illnesses (RSV, coronavirus, flu), staffing shortages and nursing home closures has sparked the state of distress visited upon the already overburdened health-care system. And experts believe the problem will deteriorate further in coming months.
Nov 21, 2022
Monoclonal Antibodies May No Longer Be a Match for Emerging COVID Strains
(MedPageToday) Evusheld, bebtelovimab losing potency as circulation of BQ.1, BQ.1.1 grows. Tixagevimab/cilgavimab (Evusheld) and bebtelovimab are likely ineffective against approximately 60% of currently circulating Omicron variants, creating a big gap in protection, particularly for immunocompromised individuals, researchers from a Harvard Medical School-led consortium said at a briefing on late last week.
Nov 21, 2022
Vaccines and drugs in the pipeline for RSV
(Reuters) There are no approved vaccines and only one drug in the United States for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms but can also lead to serious illness and hospitalization. Sanofi and AstraZeneca drug nirsevimab recently became the second to get Europe’s approval to prevent RSV infections […]
Nov 21, 2022
Researchers identify a novel RSV variant associated with prolonged infection
(Med News) Human orthopneumovirus, more commonly known as the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), can lead to significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. All children between the age of two to three years are infected by RSV at least once. RSV mainly infects the lower and upper respiratory tract epithelium; however, it has also been found in […]
Nov 21, 2022
Viral genetic determinants of prolonged respiratory syncytial virus infection among infants in a healthy term birth cohort
(Journal of Infectious Diseases) Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is associated with acute respiratory infection. We sought to identify RSV variants associated with prolonged infection.
Nov 21, 2022
Consequences of COVID Reinfection (Podcast)
(MedPageToday) THealthWatch is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, look at the top medical stories of the week.
Nov 21, 2022
Skin compounds associated with attractiveness to mosquitoes
(NIH) Better knowledge of why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes could lead to new ways to prevent mosquito bites. In turn, this could help prevent mosquito-borne illnesses, which sicken hundreds of millions of people worldwide each year, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Mosquitoes use four types of molecules called co-receptors to […]
Nov 20, 2022
Incidence of Epilepsy and Seizures Over the First 6 Months After a COVID-19 Diagnosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study
(Neurology) The relationship between COVID-19 and epilepsy is uncertain. We studied the potential association between COVID-19 and seizures or epilepsy in the six months after infection. We applied validated methods to an electronic health records network (TriNetX Analytics) of 81 million people. We closely matched people with COVID-19 infections to those with influenza. In each […]
Nov 18, 2022