Meningococcal meningitis can strike healthy individuals unexpectedly and result in the death of one in 10 infected people, sometimes causing long-term health problems including brain damage and loss of limbs. Although rare, meningitis disproportionately affects college students.

Because meningitis serogroup B (MenB) has caused all meningococcal meningitis outbreaks on U.S. college campuses since 2011, according to the CDC, undergraduate researchers at Quinnipiac University conducted a survey to examine MenB knowledge among their peers, to encourage vaccination. Their findings, presented by Katrina Etts, BS, at ASM Microbe 2024 in Atlanta, indicate a significant lack of awareness about the risk for MenB.

Read more at Infectious Disease Special Edition.

Four poultry workers in Colorado who recently contracted bird flu bring the total of human cases in the U.S. to at least nine. 

Though that number is small, disease researchers say commonalities between the cases — all but one of which were reported in the last four months — are enough to start assembling a picture of how the virus may affect people. 

The U.S. cases have been relatively mild and limited to farm workers who had handled infected animals — a sign that the virus in its current state isn’t a major threat to humans. 

Read more at NBC.

A large new study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that vaccines reduce the risk of developing long Covid.

Scientists looked at people in the United States infected during the first two years of the pandemic and found that the percentage of vaccinated people who developed long Covid was much lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people who did.

Medical experts have previously said that vaccines can lower the risk of long Covid, largely because they help prevent severe illness during the infection period and people with severe infections are more likely to have long-term symptoms.

Read more at The New York Times.

Bird flu has infected six farmworkers in Colorado this month — the most in any state — as health officials stressed the importance of preparedness to contain the H5N1 virus spreading in dairy herds and poultry flocks across the country.

Five of the workers were culling poultry at the same commercial egg-laying farm experiencing an outbreakaffecting nearly 2 million chickens, according to Colorado officials.

During a news briefing Tuesday, federal officials said temperatures soaring above 104 degrees made it difficult for workers to wear the required full-body suits, goggles and N95 masks to protect them from the virus.

Read more at The Washington Post.

Nearly 1 in 10 people infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy developed long covid, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Thursday’s study, which highlights the consequences of the virus during pregnancy, suggests long covid is more prevalent among people infected while pregnant than in the population overall. As many as 7 percent of Americans report having symptoms associated with long covid, according to a 2022 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some surveys suggest a far higher incidence of long covid in the general population.

Read more at The Washington Post.

When his nine-year-old son went to a routine doctor’s appointment a few years ago, Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters, Ph.D., expected that he would receive a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV). The vaccine, which protects against multiple forms of cancer caused by HPV, is recommended for pre-teen boys and girls. And can be given beginning at age nine.

Osazuwa-Peters, an associate professor of global health who studies some of the cancers caused by HPV, saw no reason to delay. But he was surprised when his son’s doctor said the vaccine could wait, since he was at low risk for HPV infection.

“I couldn’t wait for my son to receive the vaccine,” says Osazuwa-Peters, who is also in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Communication Sciences in the Duke School of Medicine. “And for him not to, I wasn’t happy about that.”

Read more at Duke Global Health Institute.

COVID-19 is no longer in the top 10 reasons why Coloradans die, according to the state’s annual death data, but the virus still casts a shadow over the numbers. 

Long COVID is starting to be listed as a “significant contributing factor” in the deaths of some Coloradans, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Since January 2023, there have been 52 deaths among Colorado residents in which long COVID was recorded as playing a role.

“It doesn’t surprise me. It’s definitely something that we should pay attention to because long COVID exists,” said Dr. Dana Dabelea, an epidemiology professor at Colorado’s School of Public Health, where she’s associate dean for research. 

Read more at CPR.

In late March, a worker on a commercial dairy farm in Texas developed a case of pink eye. He eventually tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza Type A H5N1, also known as bird flu. Scientists were shocked to find out that cattle, not birds, were the host — and that large amounts of H5N1 were found in the infected cattle.

So far this year, there have been four confirmed cases in humans following exposure to a dairy cow, with at least 143 dairy herds affected in a dozen states. For years, scientists have warned that bird flu could become another pandemic like COVID-19 (which hasn’t exactly ended.) In other species, scientists have seen H5N1 decimate populations of seals and cats.  Now, a new study published in the journal Nature takes a deeper look at the virus infecting cows, shedding light on the risk it poses to the human population. 

Read more at Salon.

Jefferson County Public Health is launching its first mobile clinic to take health care on the go.

The clinic is inside a van that will travel through the county, offering the same services available at on-site clinics. The goal is to deliver services to people in rural areas, people with limited mobility and who don’t have access to transportation.  

“We have very talented nurses and providers that want to be able to get out and render this kind of important clinical public health care,” said Max Johnson, director of clinic services with Jefferson County Public Health. “This is our way of saying, ‘We see you, we hear you, we understand the needs and we want to meet them.'”

The van is filled with technology to stay powered in rural areas. In the past, the health department would have to rely on community partners for power and shelter for clinics held in rural parts of the county. 

Read more at 9 News.

Higher Covid-19 vaccination rates are associated with protection against children experiencing symptomatic asthma, according to the findings of a new JAMA Network Open study. The researchers reported that for every increase of 10 percentage points in the coverage of Covid-19 vaccination, the prevalence of pediatric asthma symptoms decreased by 0.36 percentage points.

“Asthma is one of the most common chronic illnesses among children in the United States, with about 4.7 million children experiencing symptoms each year,” lead author Matthew M. Davis, Executive Vice-President, Enterprise Physician-in-Chief and Chief Scientific Officer of Nemours Children’s Health, said in a press release. “Whether asthma is mild or severe, it affects children’s quality of life. So anything we can do to help kids avoid flare-ups is beneficial.”

Read more at Forbes.