The committee that advises the federal government on biosecurity and dual-use research today approved a statement detailing its concerns about the US government moratorium on funding for "gain-of-function" (GOF) studies on influenza, MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
A hospital cluster of five confirmed MERS-CoV cases in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been traced to a patient from Taif near Mecca, the country's Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a statement today.
The count of confirmed enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) cases in the United States reached 796 today, and the number of unexplained neurologic illnesses with potential links to the virus has risen to 37, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Vaccination coverage of young US children against all routinely recommended vaccines remained high and even increased for certain vaccines last year, according to data from the National Immunization Survey (NIS), published today in Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
In 2013, just 57% of girls and 35% of boys had received 1 of 3 doses of HPV vaccine.
A 67-study meta-analysis found that vaccines recommended for US kids were safe and that serious side effects were rare, according to a Rand Corp. report today in Pediatrics.
The risk of post-vaccination seizures in 1-year-olds was twice as high with the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine compared with the MMR and varicella vaccines (MMR+V) administered separately, but the absolute risk is small, according to a study yesterday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
China's Guangdong province reported another H7N9 influenza infection, along with a death in a previously reported case, according to a May 2 health department statement translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
The patient is a 53-year-old woman from Shenzhen who suffers from chronic bronchitis. She is hospitalized in stable condition.
Testing of nasal and eye swabs of camels in Oman found 5 of 76 samples positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and genetic sequencing showed that they were closely related to human viruses in the region
In a trial of several types of fact-based messages that encouraged parents to have their children immunized with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, none worked, especially among those least disposed to have their kids vaccinated, US researchers reported yesterday in Pediatrics.
The scientists tested four types of promotion based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Web site:
