Latest news with #InfectiousDiseases
Express Tribune
12 hours ago
- Health
- Express Tribune
Second Congo virus death reported in Malir
Sindh has reported its second casualty from the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) Known as Congo virus in 2025, after a fisherman from Ibrahim Hyderi died on June 19. A confirmed case of Congo virus was reported in Malir district after 25-year-old fisherman from Ibrahim Hyderi, identified as Muhammad Zubair was admitted to Jinnah Hospital on June 16 with severe symptoms, including high fever, muscle pain, abdominal pain, cough, diarrhea, and bleeding. Upon suspicion of Congo virus infection and due to limited facilities, he was referred to the Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital & Research Centre (SIDH & RC), where he passed away on June 19. Following the death, the Sindh Health Department has mobilised an Active Search and Response Team to the affected locality. Health officials have gathered information from the family and identified all individuals who were in contact with the patient. As of now, no other person has been reported with the virus. However, residents and family members have been counseled on preventive measures and early symptom detection.
WebMD
a day ago
- Health
- WebMD
FDA Approves First Twice-Yearly Shot to Prevent HIV
June 19, 2025 – The FDA has approved the first twice-yearly shot to reduce the risk of HIV infections. Originally approved in 2012, the drug – known as lenacapavir but sold under the name Yeztugo – offers a new way to protect against this life-threatening infection that affects more than a million people in the U.S. and has no cure. The shot is given before potential exposure to the virus. HIV spreads through unprotected sex and shared needles (including dirty needles from tattoos and body piercings). It weakens the immune system, and in its advanced stage, the body can no longer fight off infections, leading to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Only about a third of eligible people in the U.S. use available HIV prevention, with especially low use among women, Black/African American and Hispanic communities, and people in the South. This is mainly due to stigma, low awareness about existing options, and challenges with daily pills or frequent shots. Carlos del Rio, MD, a distinguished professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, said that getting a shot just twice a year could make it easier for people to stick with prevention. "Yeztugo could be the transformative PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis] option we've been waiting for – offering the potential to boost PrEP uptake and persistence and adding a powerful new tool in our mission to end the HIV epidemic," said del Rio, who is also co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research in Atlanta. Gilead, the drug's maker, said the FDA approved Yeztugo based on two major studies, which showed that it worked better than taking a daily pill form of PrEP in preventing HIV with a nearly 100% success rate. In one trial, none of the 2,134 women who received Yeztugo got HIV, while in the other, only two out of 2,179 people did. It was well tolerated with no new safety concerns, which led the academic journal Science to name lenacapavir as its 2024 "Breakthrough of the Year." Yeztugo attacks a protective shell that HIV needs to stay alive, which helps stop the virus from growing and spreading. Most HIV drugs only work at one part of the virus's life cycle, but Yeztugo works at several points. It also still works even if other HIV drugs have stopped working. It is given as a shot under the skin and is only for people who test negative for HIV. Before starting Yeztugo and before each shot, your provider will test for HIV to prevent the virus from developing resistance to the medication. The treatment begins with two shots and two tablets, followed by two more tablets the next day – then continues with one shot every six months. If a shot is delayed by over two weeks, a weekly pill can be used for up to six months. If over 28 weeks pass with no treatment, patients may need to restart. If a patient gets HIV while on Yeztugo, they'll need full HIV treatment, as Yeztugo alone isn't enough. Yeztugo helps lower the risk of HIV when taken as prescribed, along with safe sex practices like using condoms.
The Independent
06-06-2025
- Health
- The Independent
How AI could help stop the next pandemic before it starts
Could artificial intelligence tools be used to stop the next pandemic before it starts? During the Covid pandemic, new technology developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Duke universities didn't exist. But, for the first time, researchers there say they've devised a revolutionary large language modeling tool - the type of generative AI used in ChatGP - to help predict the spread of any infectious disease, such as bird flu, monkeypox, and RSV. That could help save lives and reduce infections. 'Covid-19 elucidated the challenge of predicting disease spread due to the interplay of complex factors that were constantly changing,' Johns Hopkins' Lauren Gardner, a modeling expert who created the Covid dashboard that was relied upon by people worldwide during the pandemic, said in a statement. 'When conditions were stable the models were fine. However, when new variants emerged or policies changed, we were terrible at predicting the outcomes because we didn't have the modeling capabilities to include critical types of information,' she added. 'The new tool fills this gap.' Gardner was one of the authors of the study published Thursday in the Nature Computational Science journal. The tool, named PandemicLLM, considers recent infection spikes, new variants, and stringent protective measures. The researchers utilized data that had never been used before in pandemic prediction tools, finding that PandemicLLM could accurately predict disease patterns and hospitalization trends one to three weeks out. The data included rates of cases hospitalizations and vaccines, types of government policies, characteristics of disease variants and their prevalence, and state-level demographics. The model incorporates these elements to predict how they will come together and affect how disease behaves. They retroactively applied PandemicLLM to the Covid pandemic, looking at each state over the course of 19 months. The authors said the tool was particularly successful when the outbreak was in flux. It also outperformed existing state-of-the-art forecasting methods, including the highest performing ones on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's CovidHub. 'Traditionally we use the past to predict the future,' author Hao 'Frank' Yang, a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of civil and systems engineering, said. 'But that doesn't give the model sufficient information to understand and predict what's happening. Instead, this framework uses new types of real-time information.' Going forward, they are looking at how large language models can replicate the ways individuals make decisions about their health. They hope that such a model would help officials to design safer and more effective policies. More than a million Americans have died from Covid. It's not a matter of if there will be a next pandemic, but when. Right now, the U.S. is dealing with the spread of H5N1 bird flu, RSV, HMPV, pertussis, and measles, among other health concerns. Vaccination rates for measles have plunged since the pandemic, and general vaccine hesitancy has increased. That has resulted in fears that the nation could see decades of health progress reversed. Furthermore, U.S. health officials have acted to separate from global efforts to respond to pandemics, withdrawing from the World Health Organization earlier this year. Last month, they limited access to Covid vaccines for certain groups. 'We know from Covid-19 that we need better tools so that we can inform more effective policies,' Gardner said. 'There will be another pandemic, and these types of frameworks will be crucial for supporting public health response.'
Daily Mail
30-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Health expert furious as Aussies avoid getting the Covid-19 vaccine: 'We have dropped the ball'
Australians have been warned that falling Covid vaccinations rates could pose a risk as a new highly contagious strain of the virus emerges. The variant known as NB.1.8.1 - first recorded on January 21 - is responsible for a sharp rise in cases in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and is now the dominant strain in WA, responsible for a 24 per cent jump in case numbers. Professor Paul Griffin, from Mater Hospital in Brisbane, said the Covid vaccination rate is the lowest it has been since they were introduced five years ago. 'We have dropped the ball with Covid-19 vaccinations, but this disease is still very prevalent in the community and poses a serious threat to high-risk patients,' said Prof. Griffin, who is director of infectious diseases at the hospital. 'It should now be a once-a-year booster, just like the flu vaccine is, and with winter here next week, now is the time to get vaccinated and it's safe to get them both together. 'There are hundreds of different strains of Omicron, and the new subvariant NB.1.8.1 is driving up infections and hospitalisations, particularly in Asia and Western Australia. 'The best way to protect yourself and your family, is to get the newest booster which provides very good coverage, is safe, and will reduce the severity of your symptoms.' Fewer than 250,000 Queenslanders have received a yearly booster despite it, along with the flu vaccine, being free. He said there has also been a sharp rise in flu cases in Queensland with more than 2,000 people already hospitalised this year. This is a 30 per cent increase on the same period last year and could pose a threat of overloading the hospital system if Covid cases also spiked. He said cases of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) were also high with 1,500 people hospitalised making it a 'triple threat'. 'More than half of these hospitalisations have been for the most vulnerable in our community, babies less than six months and people over 65,' Prof Griffin said. RSV vaccinations are free for pregnant women, with immunity then passed onto babies up until they are six months old. Experts have warned that childhood vaccination rates across the board - not just for Covid - have been steadily dropping since the Covid pandemic. 'Since 2020, the share of children who are fully vaccinated has fallen every year. For every child vaccine on the National Immunisation Schedule, protection was lower in 2024 than in 2020,' Professor Peter Beadon of the Grattan Institute said. 'Globally, in 2023, measles cases rose by 20 per cent.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The Recalled Cookie Dough That Led To Illness In 30 States
If you don't have time to make cookies from scratch (even with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe out there), prepackaged dough is a great alternative. When it comes to popular varieties, Nestlé Toll House offers a selection of refrigerated dough products that not only save time in the kitchen but are also quite tasty where cookie quality is concerned. That doesn't mean the iconic brand hasn't experienced its share of troubles over the years, including an incident in 2009 that resulted in 77 people across 30 states falling ill (almost half of whom required hospitalization). Reports from the time indicated that flour within the ready-to-bake product was contaminated with bacteria called Shiga toxin–producing E. coli, which is a strain very likely to cause a severe E. coli infection. Investigators were unable to land on a definitive cause of illness among those affected, but the flour was suspicious because all other ingredients were deemed safe during the supplier investigation. E. coli infections often cause uncomfortable symptoms like stomach cramping and diarrhea, but 10 people affected by the 2009 outbreak developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can cause lasting kidney damage and other serious health effects. While the subsequent illness was quite severe, no deaths were reported as a result of this outbreak. Read more: Peanut Butter Brands Ranked Worst To Best The 2009 Nestlé Toll House cookie dough recall was unique because the way consumers used the product was a major factor in the illness that followed. According to the CDC, an investigation found that the majority of people who became ill consumed the contaminated dough raw, and as you hopefully know, eating raw cookie dough is a major no-no (despite how tempting it can be). In addition to health problems posed by raw eggs, raw flour can harbor harmful pathogens like E. coli, as illustrated by Nestlé Toll House's unfortunate situation. Prepackaged cookie doughs feature warnings about consuming the product raw and urge consumers to bake the product according to instructions prior to eating. However, a 2011 study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases had another recommendation in the wake of Nestlé Toll House's E. coli outbreak. After investigating the incident, researchers suggested that prepackaged doughs should be reformulated so that they can be consumed raw without issue. In this case, replacing raw flour with a heat-treated variety can prevent bacterial infections. Similarly, recipes must contain pasteurized eggs, which also undergo a heat-treating process. Worth noting is that Nestlé Toll House has been embroiled in other cookie dough recalls since the 2009 incident, including a 2022 recall that involved plastic contamination. Read the original article on Mashed.
