Respiratory Infections News

Parental concern about the safety of childhood vaccines increased significantly during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, although confidence in vaccines remained high, according to research published in Pediatrics.

Men with hypogonadism who contract COVID-19 are more likely to be hospitalized compared with those with normal testosterone levels, according to study findings published in JAMA Network Open.

The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee on Thursday voted to recommend the bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccines authorized this week by the FDA that also target the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

As of Aug. 5, approximately half of all eligible Americans aged 5 years or older had received their first COVID-19 booster vaccine, according to data published Thursday in MMWR.

Despite being deauthorized by the FDA on Jan. 24, 2022, due to omicron variant inefficiency, two monoclonal antibody treatments were administered more than 158,000 times to patients with COVID-19, according to a study in JAMA Network Open.

Life expectancy in the United States has declined for the second consecutive year, reaching levels that have not been seen since 1996, according to provisional data from the CDC.

The FDA on Wednesday authorized bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech for emergency use in the United States.

Regular physical activity was associated with a lower risk for developing COVID-19 and experiencing adverse outcomes of COVID-19, including severe disease and mortality, a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found.

Moderna said Friday that it is filing lawsuits against Pfizer and BioNTech alleging that their COVID-19 messenger RNA vaccine infringes on patents crucial to the development of Moderna's mRNA vaccine.

Pfizer reported Thursday that its vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus was nearly 86% effective in preventing severe illness in a phase 3 clinical trial of older adults.