Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Risk of reinfection, vaccine protection, and severity of infection with the BA.5 omicron subvariant: a nation-wide population-based study in Denmark
(The Lancet) Estimates of immunity and severity for the SARS-CoV-2 omicron subvariant BA.5 are important to assess the public health impact associated with its rapid global spread despite vaccination. We estimated natural and vaccine immunity and severity of BA.5 relative to BA.2 in Denmark, a country with high mRNA-vaccination coverage and free-of-charge RT-PCR testing.
Oct 18, 2022
Ugandan woman with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever isolated
(Dispatch) Soroti Regional Referral Hospital has isolated a female patient confirmed to have Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, a widespread disease caused by a tick-borne virus. The patient is from Aprikila Sub County in Kaberamaido District in Eastern Uganda. The patient was admitted to Soroti Regional Referral Hospital on Wednesday 12, October 2022 after a referral from […]
Oct 18, 2022
Authorized COVID Antiviral Fails to Cut Hospitalization Risk
MedPageToday – Molnupiravir failed to reduce the risk for hospitalization or death in high-risk COVID-19 outpatients who took the oral antiviral within 5 days of symptoms, a large open-label multicenter trial found. In more than 25,000 participants in the PANORAMIC study, the rate of all-cause hospitalization or death at 28 days was an identical 0.8% […]
Oct 18, 2022
The new COVID booster will protect older Americans this flu season. Here’s how to get shots into arms
Harvard Public Health – The new bivalent booster protects against the original COVID and the dominant Omicron variant. And yet, only 5% of adults eligible for the new COVID booster have received it. Local health departments can change that. Public health leaders have blamed Americans’ lack of urgency on mixed public health messaging about boosters, […]
Oct 18, 2022
Emmanuel, a TikTok-famous emu, has avian flu after a deadly outbreak on a Florida farm
NPR – Emmanuel, a widely beloved emu who went viral on TikTok, is in dire condition battling the avian flu. Taylor Blake’s family farm in South Florida, Knuckle Bump Farms, has lost more than 50 birds in just three days, Blake wrote on Twitter Saturday. Only two birds survived. “I am still trying to wrap […]
Oct 18, 2022
Radiographic Lung Changes Common With Pulmonary Long COVID Symptoms
MedPageToday – Radiographic evidence of pulmonary pathology was common months after acute infection among people with ongoing exertional or respiratory symptoms, early results of a study exploring the physiology of long COVID showed. Fully 55% of the subset of persistently symptomatic patients with a high-resolution CT showed radiographic evidence of pulmonary pathology at least 3 […]
Oct 18, 2022
Study Shows Benefits of COVID-19 Vaccines and Boosters
NIH Director’s Blog – As colder temperatures settle in and people spend more time gathered indoors, cases of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses almost certainly will rise. That’s why, along with scheduling your annual flu shot, it’s now recommended that those age 5 and up should get an updated COVID-19 booster shot [1,2]. Not only […]
Oct 18, 2022
Monkeypox after Occupational Needlestick Injury from Pustule
CDC EID – We report a case of monkeypox in a physician after an occupational needlestick injury from a pustule. This case highlights risk for occupational transmission and manifestations of the disease after percutaneous transmission: a short incubation period, followed by a solitary lesion at the injured site and later by systemic symptoms.
Oct 18, 2022
Monkeypox Virus Infection Resulting from an Occupational Needlestick — Florida, 2022
CDC – In August 2022, the Florida Department of Health notified CDC of a nurse who acquired monkeypox through an occupational exposure while providing care to a patient with monkeypox. To date, occupationally acquired Monkeypox virus (MPXV) infections in health care personnel (HCP) have been rarely reported during the 2022 multinational outbreak (1,2). This report describes the […]
Oct 18, 2022
Dr Anthony Fauci: long Covid is an ‘insidious’ public health emergency
Guardian – Dr. Fauci urged US Congress to avoid complacency and resume funding to combat the virus as well as long Covid, a chronic and prolonged illness that continues to elude scientists and healthcare providers. “It’s a very insidious beneath-the-radar-screen public health emergency,” Fauci said via Zoom. “It isn’t that you have people who are […]
Oct 18, 2022