Vaccination

The FDA’s recent authorization of a rapid, point-of-care test to diagnose current hepatitis C virus infection is a major victory, but it would be malpractice to initiate same-day HCV treatment if a patient’s hepatitis B virus status is unknown.

As health care workers, we have daily encounters with sick patients who could potentially have a contagious illness. Measles is a particular challenge in the health care setting.

Rather than telling a patient they should get a vaccine, the CDC’s shared clinical decision-making recommendations advise patients to speak to providers about certain vaccines and decide on an individual basis if they should receive them. 

HHS announced that it will give Moderna around $176 million to accelerate the development of a messenger RNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine amid an ongoing outbreak of avian influenza.

CHICAGO — HPV vaccination rates for children and young adults increased substantially during the 2010s regardless of gender, race or ethnicity, according to findings presented at ASCO Annual Meeting.

After decades of RSV vaccine development, the approvals and recommendations were seen as landmark events in preventive medicine. Uptake was low, however — not unusual for first-year approvals, experts told Healio.

Avian influenza continues to be detected among birds and dairy cows in the United States, raising questions about how to control the more than 2-year-old outbreak.

The CDC on Thursday recommended updated COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024-2025 respiratory season, and a newly approved 21-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for adults.

The CDC’s vaccine advisors voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend that everyone aged 75 years or older get vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus.

A two-dose series of a hepatitis B vaccine with a CpG adjuvant resulted in a more than 90% response rate among health care workers previously classified as nonresponders, researchers found.