COVID-19

CHICAGO — Patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease had worse COVID-19-related outcomes compared with infected individuals without NAFLD, according to data presented at Digestive Disease Week.

Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, announced Friday that she will resign as CDC director at the end of June.

WHO said Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic no longer constitutes a global public health emergency of international concern, citing reduced risks to human health driven by high population-level immunity and vaccination.

From 2021 to 2022, the overall death rate in the United States decreased about 5% and COVID-19 death rates nearly 50%, according to research published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

SAN DIEGO — Gerald W. Smetana, MD, MACP, provided an update on three new treatments that are important to primary care physicians.

The White House announced that it will end COVID-19 vaccine requirements for federal employees and international air travelers on May 11, the same day the public health and national emergencies for the pandemic are scheduled to end.

Nearly half of health care workers who tested positive for COVID-19 continued working at least part of 1 day with symptoms, according to a study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

SAN DIEGO — Some of the biggest developments in infectious diseases in the past 12 months involve a promising treatment for COVID-19, a universal influenza mRNA vaccine candidate and the emergence of vaccine-derived polio, a speaker said.

Larsucosteral was well-tolerated and improved short-term biomarkers of liver injury or disease in a subset of patients with moderate to severe alcohol-associated hepatitis, according to research in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Nearly 10% of patients with autoimmune rheumatic disease experience flares following COVID-19 vaccination, according to data published in Rheumatology.