Healthcare workers (HCWs) in Guinea last year had an incidence of Ebola virus disease 42 times higher than non-HCWs, and lab technicians, physicians, and men were especially hit hard, according to a report today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
A trial to see if a lower dose of one of the leading Ebola vaccine candidates can reduce reactions such as arthritis and skin rashes found that the effects persisted and that decreasing the dose had a negative impact on immune response. An international research team based in Switzerland published their findings on the lower VSV-EBOV dose yesterday in an early online edition of Lancet Infectious Diseases.
HPV vaccine uptake, though up slightly, was just 60% in girls and 42% in boys.
Two straight weeks of low influenza activity signal that the long 2014-15 flu season, marked by its heavy impact on seniors and poor vaccine performance, is drawing to an end, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a short review of the season yesterday.
Saudi Arabia reported another MERS case today, raising the count for the first 3 days of March to a dozen, 11 of which occurred in Riyadh.
Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) is not associated with an increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) among teen girls, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The number of disease outbreaks linked to the drinking of unpasteurized milk has risen at an alarming rate, quadrupling from the period 1993-2006 to 2007-12, as more states allow the legal sale of raw milk, according to a study today in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The toll in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) Ebola outbreak reached 62 cases and 35 deaths as of Sep 9, including 7 fatal cases in healthcare workers, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday.
The new numbers compare with 53 cases and 31 deaths reported on Sep 2. The outbreak involves a different Ebola virus species from the one circulating in West Africa and is a separate event.
China has confirmed a fatal H7N9 avian flu case in a 66-year-old woman, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said today.
The woman is from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the country's far northwest. The only other reported H7N9 case in the region, in a 53-year-old man, was confirmed last week. All other mainland H7N9 cases have been in eastern provinces, hundreds of miles away.
In 2013, just 57% of girls and 35% of boys had received 1 of 3 doses of HPV vaccine.
