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      COVID is a lot like the flu now, CDC argues in new guidance

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Saturday, 2 March - 00:16

    A view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta.

    Enlarge / A view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (credit: Getty | Nathan Posner )

    COVID-19 is becoming more like the flu and, as such, no longer requires its own virus-specific health rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday alongside the release of a unified " respiratory virus guide ."

    In a lengthy background document , the agency laid out its rationale for consolidating COVID-19 guidance into general guidance for respiratory viruses—including influenza, RSV, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and others, though specifically not measles. The agency also noted the guidance does not apply to health care settings and outbreak scenarios.

    "COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV," the agency wrote.

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      After COVID killed off a flu strain, annual flu shots are in for a redesign

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 5 October - 23:33

    Graphical depiction of a virus.

    Enlarge / The flu virus, showing the H and N proteins on its surface. (credit: CDC )

    Vaccine advisors for the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously (12 to 0) Thursday to remove, "as soon as possible," a component of annual flu shots that targets a strain of the virus that appears to have gone extinct amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The vote follows a similar recommendation from the World Health Organization last week , which stated that "every effort should be made to exclude this component as soon as possible."

    Exactly how soon that removal could happen is unclear, though, and some advisors on the FDA's panel expressed frustration that plans for the removal appear to have been slow-walked in the last couple of years, as it only became more apparent that the strain may be gone for good.

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      Experimental universal flu vaccine with an mRNA-based design enters trial

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 16 May, 2023 - 23:26 · 1 minute

    Graphical depiction of a virus.

    Enlarge / The flu virus, showing the H and N proteins on its surface. (credit: CDC )

    An mRNA-based flu vaccine designed to offer long-lasting protection against a broad range of influenza viruses is now in a phase I clinical trial, the National Institutes of Health announced this week .

    The trial brings the remarkable success of the mRNA vaccine platform to the long-standing efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine. Currently, health systems around the globe battle the seasonal scourge with shots that have to be reformulated each year to match circulating strains. This reformulation happens months before typical transmission, providing manufacturers time to produce doses at scale but also giving the strain circulation chances to shift unexpectedly. If the year's shot is a poor match for the strains that circulate in a given season, efficacy against infection can be abysmal. Still, even when the shot is well-matched, people will need another shot next year.

    "A universal influenza vaccine would be a major public health achievement and could eliminate the need for both annual development of seasonal influenza vaccines, as well as the need for patients to get a flu shot each year," Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a news release. "Moreover, some strains of influenza virus have significant pandemic potential. A universal flu vaccine could serve as an important line of defense against the spread of a future flu pandemic."

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      Southeast US has hit the roof of CDC’s respiratory illness level scale

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 11 November, 2022 - 23:26

    Southeast US has hit the roof of CDC’s respiratory illness level scale

    Enlarge (credit: CDC )

    The US continues to see a dramatic and early surge in respiratory illnesses, which is hitting young children particularly hard and setting records for the decade.

    The Southeast region is the most affected by the surge, which is driven by cases of flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus), and other seasonal respiratory viruses. Seven southern states—Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia—have reached the highest level of respiratory-illness activity on the scale from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states are colored a deep purple on the national map, representing the highest of sub-level of "Very High" activity.

    Overall, 25 states are experiencing "High" or "Very High" levels of respiratory illness activity, while six have reached the moderate category.

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      With BA.5 boosters, Biden officials herald the start of annual COVID shots

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 7 September, 2022 - 11:05

    Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccine sit on a table at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on April 06, 2022 in San Rafael, California.

    Enlarge / Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccine sit on a table at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on April 06, 2022 in San Rafael, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan )

    The updated COVID-19 boosters targeting the BA.4/5 subvariants now rolling out nationwide are meant to head off a surge of the disease this fall and winter—but they are also meant to signal a shift in the nation's pandemic response, which is moving out of an emergency phase to a place with routine, potentially annual vaccinations against a virus that is clearly not going away.

    In a White House press briefing Tuesday, top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci along with other Biden administration officials, repeatedly pushed the idea that this new phase will see COVID-19 vaccinations follow the footsteps of seasonal flu vaccines.

    "It is becoming increasingly clear that—looking forward with the COVID-19 pandemic, in the absence of a dramatically different variant—we likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual, updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population," Fauci said.

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