Respiratory Infections News

The addition of a digital chest X-ray to symptom-based screening doubled the yield of undiagnosed tuberculosis among inmates in South Africa compared with symptom-based screening alone, researchers reported.

Data from a survey representing more than 7,500 parents showed that about one-quarter were hesitant to get their child vaccinated.

The omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 now accounts for 95% of COVID-19 cases in the United States, CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, said during a White House briefing on Wednesday.

The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee voted Wednesday to recommend that adolescents aged 12 to 17 years receive a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The toll of COVID-19 in the U.S. would have been less catastrophic if primary care had been more involved in the initial response efforts, according to a report by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The CDC tweaked its guidance for people isolating with COVID-19, adding a recommendation for anyone who “wants to test” but stopping short of telling people that they should test.

An unpatented COVID-19 vaccine recently authorized in India and going into production in other countries could soon vaccinate more people globally than all the doses donated by the U.S. and other G7 countries, two of its developers said.

Women can get vaccinated against COVID-19 at any time during their pregnancy and still see significant benefits for themselves and for their children, according to a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The CDC has backed two COVID-19 vaccine authorizations issued by the FDA but will wait to hear from advisors on whether to recommend booster shots for children aged 12 to 15 years.

The FDA on Monday amended an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to add a booster dose for children aged 12 to 15 years, citing a need to protect them from the omicron variant.