Flu activity is rising in some of the Southern Hemisphere's temperate countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa. At the global level, however, levels are declining following a March peak, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a global flu update that roughly covers the first half of June.
Other areas seeing rises are Chile and southern China, where H3N2 is the dominant strain.
Symptoms of long COVID are more frequently reported by women, those with poor overall health before the pandemic, and those aged 50 to 60, according to a new UK-based study in Nature Communications.
The study was based on results gathered from 6,907 people with self-reported COVID-19 from 10 population-based longitudinal health surveys in the United Kingdom that had been in place prior to the pandemic.
Maternal COVID vaccination during pregnancy provides 52% protection against COVID-19 hospitalization in infants but only 38% protection against Omicron hospitalization, according to a study yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Protection against an intensive care unit (ICU) stay, however, was 70%.
Flu vaccination rates fell 4.5 percentage points (from 43.7% to 39.2%) in states with below-average COVID-19 vaccination.
Electronic algorithms developed by an antibiotic stewardship team at the University of Pennsylvania were highly accurate in detecting inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for bronchitis and pharyngitis, scientists reported yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.
Flu levels are up sharply in some Australian states, putting pressure on healthcare systems that are also coping with ongoing COVID-19 activity and prompting more efforts to get more people vaccinated against flu.
The rate of full COVID-19 vaccination among employees of a private Minnesota medical device manufacturer rose 10.4 percentage points after the company began offering $1,000 incentives for immunization, finds a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said COVID-19 vaccine uptake among children 5 to 11 years old in the United States remained low during the first 11 weeks of vaccine eligibility, especially in high social vulnerability index (SVI) areas. The research was published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
World Health Organization (WHO) flu vaccine strain selection advisors met this week to recommend the strains to include for the Northern Hemisphere's 2022-2023 flu season, swapping out the components for the H3N2 and influenza B Victoria lineage strains.
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.
