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Also, federal officials are taking steps to make sure Pfizer's COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid, will be widely available across the US.
Israelis aged 60 and older given a fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine amid the Omicron surge had a 64% lower risk of hospitalization and 78% lower risk of death than those who received three doses, suggests an observational study published yesterday in Nature Medicine.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has confirmed a second case in its latest Ebola outbreak in Equateur province, a close contact of the index patient. The newest patient has also died from her infection.
US cases, now nearing 50,000 per day, are rising fastest in the Midwest and Northeast.
Data show a 36% to 68% lower risk of a COVID-19 hospital stay with Omicron.
The virus has claimed the life of a 31-year-old man in Equateur province.
Patients hospitalized during the COVID-19 pandemic and tested for SARS-CoV-2 had higher rates of antibiotic-resistant infections compared with those hospitalized before the pandemic, according to a study presented yesterday at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022).
A modeling study estimates that COVID-19 vaccination prevented more than 1.5 million infections, 72,000 hospitalizations, and 19,000 deaths in the first 10 months of vaccination in California, according to a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open.
Only heart disease and cancer killed more Americans than COVID-19, and COVID deaths increased by 1% in 2021 over 2020.
A third mRNA dose boosts the immune system to better fight Omicron infections, 2 studies find.
Also, the WHO revised its assessment of remdesivir, recommending it for mild or moderate infections in high-risk groups.
Extending the time between COVID-19 vaccine doses to over 10 weeks was tied to 11 times higher antibody levels.
"Policy makers should be largely reassured by people's aggregate capacity to cope."
Testing conducted on hedgehogs in Helsinki, Finland, revealed the presence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and genes known to cause human infections, according to a paper to be presented at the upcoming European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID).
Our weekly wrap-up of antimicrobial stewardship & antimicrobial resistance scans
Adults hospitalized early in the pandemic with COVID-19 were at more than triple the risk of death than those with influenza, despite the flu patients being older and having more chronic illnesses, according to new data from Spain to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), which starts tomorrow.
This school year 35,000 more US kids were not protected against common diseases.
The data reveal about 6 instances per 100,000 Pfizer vaccinees, compared with 18 for Moderna.
Over 73% of participants were at elevated risk of infection owing to risk factors.
Of prescriptions, 74% written for elderly patients and 64% for Black patients were deemed inappropriate.
