December 2, 2021

The parasite that causes malaria can kill a person within 24 hours of symptoms appearing. Patients’ symptoms are flu-like, including a fever, headache, and chills. It all starts with a microscopic poke.

When a malaria-infected mosquito plunges her needle-like mouth through human skin, she releases immature forms of the parasites, called sporozoites, into the person’s bloodstream. From there, they travel to the liver, then to red blood cells. The infected cells burst, releasing millions of daughter parasites called merozoites, which infect other red blood cells. The cycle persists until the parasites are killed — and that’s becoming harder to do.

During the first 15 years of this century, worldwide efforts to curb malaria cut cases by 40%, and deaths fell by more than 60%. But in 2015, that progress plateaued. Since then, malaria has been quietly rising after cases had been falling steadily for over a decade.

Read more at WebMD.

December 2, 2021

At first glance, it looked just like an official New York City public service announcement that listed the top 10 reasons people should get vaccinated against Covid-19.

But a closer reading revealed that the poster, seen at a B43 bus stop in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, displayed 10 reasons not to get vaccinated. Reason No. 1: “It could kill you.”

The false and blatantly misleading anti-vaccination ad caused an uproar on social media on Thursday at a time when city health officials are pushing hard to boost the vaccination rate as a new threat from the Omicron variant looms. About 69 percent of city residents of all ages have been fully vaccinated.

The poster imitated an official vaccination ad released by the city — it used the same font, layout and even the same shade of robin’s egg blue — but conveyed the opposite message.

Read more at The New York Times.

December 2, 2021

Vaccines for children under five are expected to be approved early next year, but officials and pediatricians say the slow uptake among hesitant parents for the 5-11 age group could extend to the youngest children too.

Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health and spoke with NPR’s All Things Considered about the timeline for emergency use authorization of the vaccine for kids under 5, and the ongoing efforts to immunize those aged 5 to 11.

As with older Americans, before the vaccine makers can submit for FDA emergency use authorization, they must first conduct trials to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective.

For children under five, these trials are split into two different groups: those aged 2-5, and those aged six months to two years.

“Both of those have had data generated in a carefully controlled trial, and those are going to be submitted and [the] FDA will review them,” Collins said.

“But I think it will be by the first of the year before we have approval for those younger ages.”

Read more at NPR.

November 30, 2021

The flu is finally starting to make a comeback after a historically quiet 2020-2021 influenza season.

Though flu activity is low in much of the country, the United States is currently seeing more flu activity than it did during all of last season.

The bulk of cases can be traced back to Influenza A (H3N2), a strain often associated with more severe flu seasons, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

New Mexico is seeing high flu activity, while Georgia and Rhode Island are seeing moderate flu activity.

According to the Walgreens Flu Index, which attempts to monitor flu activity through antiviral prescription data, nationwide activity is currently 192 percent higher than it was at this time last year — though activity is still low, in general, compared to pre-pandemic flu seasons.

Read more at Healthline.

November 28, 2021

Moderna’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton said Sunday the vaccine maker could roll out a reformulated vaccine against the omicron coronavirus variant early next year.

It’s not clear whether new formulations will be needed, or if current Covid vaccinations will provide protection against the new variant that has begun to spread around the globe.

“We should know about the ability of the current vaccine to provide protection in the next couple of weeks, but the remarkable thing about the MRNA vaccines, Moderna platform is that we can move very fast,” Burton said on BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show.”

“If we have to make a brand new vaccine I think that’s going to be early 2022 before that’s really going to be available in large quantities,” the Moderna chief added.

Read more at CNBC.

December 1, 2021

The state of the digital Covid vaccine card — the bar code that we store on our phones and present to businesses and venues as proof of inoculation — is chaotic.

While some states, like California and New York, accept digital records as proof of vaccination to allow entry into restaurants and other businesses, states like Alabama, Arkansas and Florida have banned their use. That means anyone who plans to travel in the United States this holiday season has to research the policies at the destination.

Yet it’s indisputable that a digital card is far more convenient than a physical record. For many, the thought of misplacing a paper record may induce great anxiety, so it’s nice to have our inoculation data on devices that we carry everywhere. And companies like Apple and Google have come up with convenient ways to store and retrieve our vaccine credentials.

Read more at The New York Times.

December 2, 2021

Facebook has sold ads promoting anti-vaccine messages, comparing the US government’s response to Covid-19 to Nazi Germany, casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election, and even pushing political violence.

The ads have been run by merchandise companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook over the last few years.

On Monday, Fox News personality Lara Logan caused outrage by comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci to a notorious Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death” — around the same time ads were running on Facebook promoting a sweater emblazed with the words, “I’m originally from America but I currently reside in 1941 Germany.”

Another ad compared the rollout of vaccines to the Holocaust — falsely and ludicrously implying they are part of an attempt to slaughter people on a mass scale.

Read more at CNN.

December 1, 2021

JOHANNESBURG — The detection of the Omicron variant in Africa signals the next stage of the battle against Covid-19: getting many more people inoculated in poorer nations where vaccines have been scarcest in order to deter new mutations from developing.

But while world leaders sometimes talk about this as if it were largely a matter of delivering doses overseas, the experience of South Africa, at least, hints at a far more complex set of challenges.

Like many poor countries, South Africa was made to wait months for vaccines as wealthier countries monopolized them. Many countries still do not have anywhere near enough doses to inoculate their populations.

The problems have not ended as shots began arriving in greater numbers.

Read more at The New York Times.

November 30, 2021

As an obstetrician, I know first-hand the highs and lows that women experience when having a baby. It can be hugely rewarding for many and a daunting experience for some. Over the past months, the pandemic has added a great deal of uncertainty to the experience of pregnant women and those considering becoming parents.

We know how dangerous the virus can be for pregnant women. The data published over recent months has been heartbreaking. Between July and October in England, one in five Covid patients receiving NHS treatment through a special lung-bypass machine were pregnant women who had not had their first jab. Around one in five women who are hospitalised with the virus need to be delivered preterm to help them recover – and one in five of their babies need care in the neonatal unit. New data from England shows that of those pregnant women in hospital with Covid, 98% are unvaccinated.

Read more at The Guardian.

December 1, 2021

Even as Americans are trying to prepare for omicron, many parts of the country are still reeling from the delta variant. More Americans died of COVID this year than in 2020, despite the wide availability of free vaccines. The pandemic’s lingering, deadly grip has left many frustrated. We hear from viewers about how the continued spread of the virus has impacted them.

Read more at PBS.