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Month: November 2024

Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

California reveals suspected avian flu case in child with mild symptoms

Published November 19, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today said tests have identified a suspected avian flu infection in a child from Alameda County who had mild upper respiratory symptoms and no known contact with infected animals.

If confirmed, the case would mark the second avian flu infection in a child in North America from a yet undetermined source. Last week, health officials in Canada reported an H5N1 infection in a previously healthy British Columbia teen who is hospitalized in critical condition.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Bird flu in Canada may have mutated to become more transmissible to humans

Published November 19, 2024

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Melody Schreiber

The teenager hospitalized with bird flu in British Columbia, Canada, may have a variation of the virus that has a mutation making it more transmissible among people, early data shows – a warning of what the virus can do that is especially worrisome in countries such as the US where some H5N1 cases are not being detected.

The US “absolutely” is not testing and monitoring bird flu cases enough, which means scientists could miss mutated cases like these, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St Jude children’s research hospital’s department of infectious diseases.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

H5N1 bird flu virus in Canadian teenager displays mutations demonstrating virus’ risk

Published November 18, 2024

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Published by: STAT
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By Helen Branswell

The genetic sequence of the H5N1 bird flu virus that infected a teenager in British Columbia shows that the virus had undergone mutational changes that would make it easier for that version of H5N1 to infect people, scientists who have studied the data say.

There’s currently no evidence the teenager, who remains in critical condition in hospital, infected anyone else. If that’s the case, it is likely this mutated version of the virus would die out when the teen’s illness resolves. The source of the teen’s infection has not been determined, so it’s impossible to know for sure if the mutations were in the virus that infected him or her. But scientists think it is more likely that the mutations developed during the course of his or her infection.

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Topic: mpoxView all posts for the topic: mpox

First clade 1 mpox case detected in US, in California

Published November 18, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Stephanie Soucheray

Over the weekend California reported the first known clade 1 mpox case in the United States, which involves someone who recently returned from an affected African country and sought care in San Mateo County.

Health officials from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) have not confirmed if the infection is cause by clade 1b, a more transmissible and severe mpox virus causing a widespread outbreak that started in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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Topic: air qualityView all posts for the topic: air quality

Student’s article spurs inspection of school’s HVAC system

Published November 17, 2024

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Published by: The Kingston Whig Standard
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By Peter Hendra

Kingston Secondary School will have its automated heating, ventilation and air conditioning system inspected next week following the publication of a student-written article that found the concentration of carbon dioxide in the school exceeded safe levels.

Principal Darren Seymour sent a letter to students, staff and parents last week in response to the article that appeared in “The Bears Bulletin.”

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Topic: science denialView all posts for the topic: science denial

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a “threat to science and health” in the United States

Published November 15, 2024

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Published by: Radio-Canada
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By Mélanie Meloche-Holubowski

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be a “health disaster” in the United States, warn disinformation experts. His penchant for conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination rhetoric is likely to colour the direction of US health agencies.

Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of Alberta who studies health misinformation, would never have imagined that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be at the head of federal health agencies. “I never thought that someone so dangerous and so malicious would be elevated to such a level of power. I’m very concerned.”

He is not alone in fearing the impact on medicine and science in the United States. David Gorski believes that the health of Americans is clearly at stake. “It’s going to cause generational damage and it’s going to reinforce people’s distrust of science,” says the professor of surgery at Wayne State University, an expert in medical misinformation and editor-in-chief of the Science Based Medicine website.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

RFK Jr condemned as ‘clear and present danger’ after Trump nomination

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Maya Yang

Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: The Associated Press
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By Michelle R. Smith

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

Now, President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates vaccines.

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Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

Many long COVID patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: CTV News / Reuters
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By Jennifer Rigby, Julie Steenhuysen

There are certain phrases that Wachuka Gichohi finds difficult to hear after enduring four years of living with long COVID, marked by debilitating fatigue, pain,…

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Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

Long Covid could cost the economy billions every year

Published November 14, 2024

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Published by: University College London
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Working days lost to long Covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Canadian teen’s bird flu infection is not the version found in cows

Published November 13, 2024

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Published by: STAT
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By Helen Branswell

A Canadian teenager who is in critical condition after contracting H5N1 bird flu was infected with a version of the virus that is different from the one circulating in dairy cattle in the United States, Canadian authorities announced Wednesday.

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed the infection was indeed caused by the H5N1 virus. But genetic sequencing showed that it is of a genotype that has been found in wild birds, not the version that has been circulating in dairy cattle in the U.S.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Testing confirms B.C. teen infected with Canada’s first human case of avian flu

Published November 13, 2024

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Published by: CTV News
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By Lisa Steacy

Federal health officials have confirmed that a B.C. teen who is currently in hospital has Canada’s first human case of H5N1 avian flu.

Testing at the national microbiology labaratory in Winnipeg confirmed the case Wednesday, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Avoid contact with sick or dead birds, health officials urge, amid concerns about avian flu

Published November 13, 2024

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Published by: CBC News
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Carolyn Law didn’t think much of it when a snow goose landed in her Richmond, B.C., backyard, on Halloween.

But hours later it had barely moved. Then it started bobbing its head repeatedly. About eight hours after she first saw the bird, it rolled over, began convulsing and died.

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Topic: New ZealandView all posts for the topic: New Zealand

The NZ government’s plan to withhold COVID inquiry findings until 2026 leaves the country ill-prepared for the next pandemic

Published November 13, 2024

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Published by: The Conversation
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By Shaun Hendy, Michael Plank

The first report from a Royal Commission of Inquiry to review New Zealand’s response to the COVID pandemic was due to be released this month.

But the coalition government plans to withhold it, potentially until a second phase of the inquiry (with a new set of questions and commissioners) can be completed in 2026.

Continue readingThe NZ government’s plan to withhold COVID inquiry findings until 2026 leaves the country ill-prepared for the next pandemic
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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Canadian teen with suspected avian flu in critical condition

Published November 12, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

A British Columbia (BC) teen from the Fraser Health region who was hospitalized with an earlier announced presumptive positive H5 avian flu infection is in critical condition, the province’s top health official said today.

In a media briefing streamed live on Canada’s Global News, Bonnie Henry, MD, BC’s health officer, shared the latest investigation findings, noting that the patient’s symptoms began on November 2, and he or she was seen that day at a hospital emergency room. She said initial symptoms included conjunctivitis, fever, and cough.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

B.C. teen with bird flu is in critical condition, says Dr. Bonnie Henry

Published November 12, 2024

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Published by: Vancouver Sun / The Canadian Press
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By Chuck Chiang

B.C.’s provincial health officer says the teenager who has tested positive for bird flu is in critical condition in B.C. Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says the teenager, who has the first presumptive human case of bird flu contracted in Canada, was admitted to hospital late Friday. B.C. tests last week confirmed the teenager has the virus, but are waiting confirmation from a national laboratory in Winnipeg.

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Topic: PaxlovidView all posts for the topic: Paxlovid

Paxlovid cuts COVID hospitalization, death risk and speeds symptom relief, studies find

Published November 11, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Mary Van Beusekom

New findings from two studies have tied use of the antiviral drug nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) to a reduction in COVID-19 hospitalizations and death, as well as to faster resolution of symptoms and less use of healthcare resources.

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Topic: Trump regimeView all posts for the topic: Trump regime

Experts Share What Another Trump Presidency Could Mean For Your Health

Published November 11, 2024

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Published by: HuffPost
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By Jillian Wilson

During his last time in office, Trump botched the pandemic response, he spread misinformation everywhere, he contributed to restricting access to reproductive health care, he tried to repeal [the Affordable Care Act] and he set the world back on climate action. For me, it’s extremely worrying to have someone in charge with such a poor track record on health and science.

— Lucky Tran, a science communicator based in New York
Continue readingExperts Share What Another Trump Presidency Could Mean For Your Health
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