Respiratory Infections News

Influenza vaccine manufacturers in the United States said this week that they have plans to remove a potentially extinct influenza B lineage from their vaccines and offer only trivalent shots next season.

The updated COVID-19 vaccines were approximately 54% effective against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and offered protection against JN.1 and XBB viral lineages, according to early estimates published Thursday by the CDC.

SARS-CoV-2 rebound risk is more likely related to the individual person, rather than reinfection or resistance to treatment such as Paxlovid, according to two studies.

The FDA in 2023 approved treatments for several hospital-associated infections and fully approved a long-used COVID-19 medication, among other non-vaccine-related regulatory decisions.

Patients who died of a COVID-19 and tuberculosis coinfection had a shorter median time to death compared with patients who died of either COVID-19 or TB alone, according to results published in European Respiratory Journal.

Similar to SARS-CoV-2, which can cause long COVID, people hospitalized with influenza are at an increased risk for health issues long after they have cleared the infection, according to a study.

Daily toothbrushing was linked to a significantly decreased risk for hospital-acquired pneumonia, or HAP, as well as lower rates of ICU mortality, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Wastewater surveillance can effectively detect upticks in viral respiratory infections, which could help identify outbreaks, another study has shown.

A recombinant influenza vaccine offered additional protection against PCR-confirmed influenza and community-acquired pneumonia hospitalization among adults aged 50 to 64 years compared with a standard-dose vaccine, study results showed.

The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recently approved a phase 1 study that will test an inhaled mRNA-based drug as a treatment and prophylaxis of respiratory viral infections, according to a press release.