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      Boots to offer Covid vaccines in England for nearly £100 a jab

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 15:41


    Pharmacy to offer Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to those not eligible for NHS booster shot from next week

    Boots is to offer Covid vaccinations for almost £100 a shot, making it the latest provider to sell the jabs to those not eligible for a booster through the NHS.

    The company has confirmed it will offer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to healthy customers in England aged 12 and over from next week, at a cost of £98.95 a jab.

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      I helped advise the US government on the next likely pandemic. What I learned is alarming | Devi Sridhar

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 08:00 · 1 minute

    The 100-day challenge, to be able to contain a virus while a vaccine is approved, manufactured and delivered, looks ever more remote

    Four years on from the first Covid lockdown, life feels to be largely back to normal, although legacies of the pandemic remain. Collective amnesia seems to have set in. Politicians seem eager to move forward and not relive the decisions, delays and deaths that characterised public policy and press briefings. Yet we can’t forget such a brutal event, when Covid is estimated to have killed nearly 16 million people worldwide in 2020 and 2021, and caused life expectancy to decline in 84% of countries, including Britain. Pandemics aren’t a one-off event. There’s still a risk of another happening within our lifetimes.

    Fortunately, what to do about the next pandemic is still very much at the top of the global health agenda. In 2021, I was asked to co-chair the US National Academy of Sciences’ committee on advancing pandemic and seasonal influenza vaccine preparedness and response . This group was sponsored by the US government to provide recommendations on how to improve preparedness for influenza, which is seen as one of the most likely candidates for the next pandemic. I was also involved with the Lancet Covid-19 taskforce , which brought together global experts to look at how to improve on the Covid response, and what challenges there were going forward. These groups represent some of the world’s best thinkers on global health and pandemic preparedness. Here’s what I learned.

    Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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      The fight to cure South Sudan’s mysterious neurological disorder

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 08:00

    Nodding syndrome is a distressing disease that stunts growth, harms brains and sparks convulsions. Though its cause is still unknown, there is now hope that epilepsy drugs can help afflicted children

    The other children move away, frightened, when the convulsions start. Tabo takes a long, guttural breath before slumping on to the ground unconscious, her entire body shaking. The 17-year-old’s mother, Penina Monyo Gulu Biro, gently holds the girl while the attack lasts.

    A minute or two later, Tabo (pictured above) sits up again, tears rolling down her cheeks. “She cries because she’s sad to be like this,” says Biro.

    An aerial view of the Dombolo River, near Mvolo town, in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state

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      Long Covid may be nothing unique in the future – but its effects today are still very real | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 23:00 · 1 minute

    While the long-term risk from a current infection is 10 times less than it was in 2020-21, a lot of people are still suffering after getting Covid early in the pandemic

    Long Covid is one of the most controversial topics remaining about the pandemic. Depending on who you ask, it is either a real and current threat to the health of the globe, or a relatively minor issue that we should pay little attention to in the future. It is hard to weigh in on the topic without passionate advocates taking issue with the things that you say, which is true of quite a lot of the conversations we have had over the course of the pandemic.

    A recent study from Queensland has injected further discord into this already complicated space. The press release about the study says that, in a large observational study, people who had tested positive for Covid-19 when the Omicron variant was spreading were no more likely to report ongoing symptoms or serious problems in their daily life than either people who tested negative or those who tested positive for influenza. This follows similar previous work by the same team showing almost identical results. According to Dr John Gerrard, one of the authors of the paper and Queensland’s chief health officer, the findings call into question the entire conceptualisation of long Covid, arguing that it may be “time to stop using terms like ‘long Covid’” .

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      People with hypermobility may be more prone to long Covid, study suggests

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 19 March - 22:30

    People with excessive flexibility 30% more likely to say they had not fully recovered from Covid, research finds

    People with excessively flexible joints may be at heightened risk of long Covid and persistent fatigue , research suggests.

    Hypermobility is where some or all of a person’s joints have an unusually large range of movement due to differences in the structure of their connective tissues that support, protect and give structure to organs, joints and other tissues.

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      Health experts plead for unvaxxed Americans to get measles shot as cases rise

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 19 March - 16:12 · 1 minute

    A view from a hospital as children receiving medical treatment, in capital Kabul, Afghanistan on April 18, 2022. More than 130 children have died from the measles in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.

    Enlarge / A view from a hospital as children receiving medical treatment, in capital Kabul, Afghanistan on April 18, 2022. More than 130 children have died from the measles in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year. (credit: Getty | Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat )

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association sent out separate but similar pleas on Monday for unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated against the extremely contagious measles virus as vaccination rates have slipped, cases are rising globally and nationally , and the spring-break travel period is beginning.

    In the first 12 weeks of 2024, US measles cases have already matched and likely exceeded the case total for all of 2023. According to the CDC, there were 58 measles cases reported from 17 states as of March 14 . But media tallies indicate there have been more cases since then, with at least 60 cases now in total , according to CBS News. In 2023, there were 58 cases in 20 states.

    "As evident from the confirmed measles cases reported in 17 states so far this year, when individuals are not immunized as a matter of personal preference or misinformation, they put themselves and others at risk of disease—including children too young to be vaccinated, cancer patients, and other immunocompromised people," AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld said in a statement urging vaccination Monday.

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      Global eradication of polio ‘tantalisingly close’ with UK urged to keep up funding

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 16 March - 13:00

    After no reported cases of wild polio for 19 weeks, vaccination efforts boosted at last endemic spots in Pakistan and Afghanistan

    The world is “tantalisingly close” to eradicating polio – with no confirmed cases of wild polio anywhere so far this year. But experts warn that vaccination efforts – and funding – must not falter if the world is to rid itself of a human infectious disease for the second time in history , after smallpox.

    There have been no reported cases of wild polio infection in people for the last 19 weeks. Figures from the World Health Organization reveal that the last confirmed cases were on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan in October and September 2023 respectively; these are the last nations on Earth where polio is endemic.

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      Brazil to release millions of anti-dengue mosquitoes as death toll from outbreak mounts

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Friday, 15 March - 10:00

    Mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria that inhibit spread of disease to be introduced in six cities after successful pilot scheme

    A dengue-fighting strategy that involves releasing bacteria-infected mosquitoes will be rolled out to six Brazilian cities in the coming months as the country battles a severe outbreak of dengue fever, a viral disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

    Factors such as hotter and wetter weather caused by the climate crisis and the circulation of previously absent subtypes of the virus are fuelling an explosion of dengue in Brazil, which has recorded 1.6m probable cases since January – the same number reported for all of last year – and 491 deaths, with a further 889 deaths under investigation, as of 14 March.

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      Mystery in Japan as dangerous streptococcal infections soar to record levels

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Friday, 15 March - 01:05

    Health officials racing to identify cause of rise in streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, which has a 30% fatality rate

    Experts warn that a rare but dangerous bacterial infection is spreading at a record rate in Japan, with officials struggling to identify the cause.

    The number of cases in 2024 is expected to exceed last year’s record numbers, while concern is growing that the harshest and potentially deadly form of group A streptococcal disease – streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) – will continue to spread, after the presence of highly virulent and infectious strains were confirmed in Japan.

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