Emerging Diseases News

The United States Department of Agriculture this week confirmed the first case of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in a U.S. pig, raising concerns about the potential health risk to humans.

There was a “marked decrease” in COVID-19 vaccine uptake among nursing home personnel last season, according to researchers, who attributed the decline to cost and the end of the CMS’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement in mid-2023.

An Iowa resident who traveled to West Africa has died of Lassa fever after returning home, Iowa health officials said.

LOS ANGELES — Neutralizing antibodies against mpox generated by the Jynneos vaccine were short lived — lasting less than a year — if patients had never received a smallpox vaccine as children, researchers said.

New diagnoses of autoimmune diseases were not overall more likely among vaccinated patients infected with omicron or delta variants of COVID-19, compared with those not infected, according to data published in JAMA Network Open.

A CDC advisory committee on Wednesday recommended that adults aged 65 years or older and anyone who is at least moderately immunocompromised receive a second dose of COVID-19 vaccine this season.

LOS ANGELES — Paxlovid reduced the risk for severe COVID-19 hospitalization or death among people with existing immunity from a previous infection or vaccination, according to pooled trial data presented at IDWeek.

LOS ANGELES — In a Healio video exclusive, the president-elect of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, or SHEA, gave an overview of the critical issues that health care epidemiologists will face in the coming year.

LOS ANGELES — Public health officials could have detected H5 influenza in wastewater days before highly pathogenic avian influenza was confirmed in cattle earlier this year, according to a study presented at IDWeek.

LOS ANGELES — Interim data from a phase 2 clinical trial of the Jynneos mpox vaccine showed that it is safe and generates an antibody response in adolescents that is similar to the response seen in adults, researchers reported.