China has reported to more H5N6 avian flu infections in humans, both fatal in people who were sick in November and died in early December, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement today.
The CDC says the risk to humans is low, but people with elevated exposure may be at higher risk.
The estimated effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine against infection in US adolescents was 91%, with 93% protection against symptomatic illness and 85% against asymptomatic disease amid the Delta SARS-CoV-2 surge in Connecticut, finds a study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open.
A retrospective study of 17 COVID-19 survivors with lingering symptoms reveals that 10 (59%) had nerve damage, which the researchers said could have been triggered by potentially treatable infection-related immune dysfunction.
A study yesterday in JAMA Network Open tracked excess mortality caused by both influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the United States from 1999 to 2018 and found that RSV caused more deaths in infants, while both viruses caused substantial mortality in elderly Americans.
Federal health officials have announced 45 more high-pathogenic H5 avian flu detections in waterfowl, including the first involving wild birds in Alabama, Maine, and New Jersey in the recent spread of the virus. Also, officials reported two more outbreaks involving other types of birds in New York.
Mortality rates among children born with congenital Zika syndrome up to 3 years of age were more than 11 times higher than those without Zika, researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Two independent UK studies published yesterday in PLOS Medicine find only a very slight risk of blood clots in the brain after receipt of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine and none after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Both studies were led by University of Edinburgh researchers.
So far, highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks have hit poultry in 5 states.
The risk of hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and death was much lower among more than 9,000 Canadian COVID-19 patients infected with the Omicron variant than among matched Delta patients, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA.
The risk of hospitalization or death with Omicron was 41% of—and the risk of death was one-tenth of—that of Delta.
