WASHINGTON (AP) — Novavax’s closely watched COVID-19 vaccine is on track for full approval after additional discussions with the Food and Drug Administration, the company said Wednesday.
The news sent company shares soaring more than 21% in morning trading and appeared to resolve concerns that Trump administration officials might be holding up a decision on the shot.
Comments closedHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing pulling the Covid-19 vaccine from the government’s list of recommended immunizations for children, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.
The directive under consideration would remove the Covid shot from the childhood vaccine schedule maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and widely used by physicians to guide vaccine distribution, marking Kennedy’s most significant move yet to shake up the nation’s vaccination practices.
Comments closedThe measles outbreak that began in Quebec in December has officially ended, the Ministry of Health has confirmed. The situation is quite different in Ontario, which has recorded more than 900 cases.
The spread has stabilized in Quebec in recent weeks, with the last recorded case dating back to March 18. Quebec has confirmed 40 cases of measles during this outbreak, with the vast majority (32 cases) in the Laurentians.
According to the government’s technical parameters for the management of measles cases, contacts and outbreaks in Quebec, the end of the outbreak is set at the 32nd day following the last presence of the last contagious case in an environment.
Comments closedThe new estimate suggests that approximately 404,000 people are affected by ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome), a 62 per cent rise from the previously accepted figure of 250,000.
Comments closedLocal podcaster Daniella Barreto called her latest project Public Health Is Dead to capture her frustration with how leaders handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It seemed like all of these things we’re taught in school, like prevention being key and using evidence to make decisions, was thrown out the window,” Barreto told The Tyee. “Mask mandates were being taken away, people were increasingly getting long COVID, and I decided I needed to do something because people were not getting the information they needed.”
Launching the podcast in November 2024, Barreto used her background in public health, with a master of science in population public health from the University of British Columbia and a bachelor of science in health science from Simon Fraser University, to help explain what went wrong. So far she’s released five episodes and has many more in the works.
Comments closedA made-in-Hamilton COVID vaccine that requires no needles is moving to the next stage of testing and researchers are looking for volunteers to take part.
The vaccine that is inhaled instead of injected will be studied by McMaster University researchers with $8 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Comments closedThe Pennsylvania laboratory that certifies all of the country’s NIOSH-approved respirators is on the chopping block. HHS is stonewalling employees who raise questions.
Comments closedManitoba is rolling out a vaccination campaign for those at the highest risk of developing serious outcomes from COVID-19, aiming to get people vaccinated before summer, when virus circulation might increase, the province says.
Between May 1 and June 30, the province will make additional COVID-19 vaccine doses available for people who have already had a dose since last fall, but meet specific criteria.
The extra doses will be available to anyone age 65 or older, Indigenous people over the age of 45, residents of long-term care homes, and anyone age six months or up who is moderately or severely immunocompromised.
Comments closedThe Trump administration is seeking to deeply slash budgets for federal health programs, a roughly one-third cut in discretionary spending by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by The Washington Post.
The HHS budget draft, known as a “passback,” offers the first full look at the health and social service priorities of President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget as it prepares to send his 2026 fiscal year budget request to Congress. It shows how the Trump administration plans to reshape the federal health agencies that oversee food and drug safety, manage the nation’s response to infectious-disease threats and drive biomedical research.
Comments closedCountries united under the World Health Organization on Wednesday agreed to a milestone accord on how to respond to future pandemics and avoid repeating the mistakes made during the Covid-19 crisis. The agreement comes despite US foreign aid cuts and possible tariffs on pharmaceuticals casting uncertainty over the talks.
Years of negotiations culminated early Wednesday with countries agreeing the text of a landmark accord on how to tackle future pandemics, aimed at avoiding a repeat of the mistakes made during the Covid-19 crisis.
After more than three years of talks and one last marathon session, weary delegates at the World Health Organization’s headquarters sealed the deal at around 2am (0000 GMT) Wednesday.
“Tonight marks a significant milestone in our shared journey towards a safer world,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“The nations of the world made history in Geneva today.”
Comments closedA major outbreak of measles has infected more than 800 people in Ontario. It’s the first outbreak of its size since the disease was declared eliminated in 1998.
Now, lower vaccination rates are leading to a serious outbreak in the province, enough to garner a travel advisory to the province from New York State south of the border.
Here’s what you need to know about measles — how it’s transmitted, how you can protect yourself, and whether you need to update your vaccinations.
Comments closed(Montreal) A COVID-19 vaccination campaign is launched this spring for people at risk of developing complications, Santé Québec announced on Monday.
Teams are currently deployed in the province’s long-term care homes, after which vaccination will be offered in private seniors’ residences (RPA) with a more vulnerable clientele.
In addition to CHSLDs and RPAs, seniors 75 years of age or older and people with immunodeficiency or dialysis are encouraged to go get their vaccine dose. This vaccination campaign also aims to reach people aged 65-74 who live with a chronic disease or in remote and isolated areas.
Non-targeted people aged 6 months and older can also receive the COVID-19 vaccine free of charge, says Santé Québec. If they have already been vaccinated, they should wait at least six months after their vaccine before receiving a new dose.
Comments closedFive years after the pandemic’s start, millions of Americans are still struggling with long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19. Cognitive difficulties are among the most troubling and common symptoms in people both old and young.
These ailments can be severe enough to leave former professionals like Ken Todd unable to work and even diagnosed with a form of mild cognitive impairment.
Comments closedHealth secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed another unorthodox view on vaccines, with the long-time vaccine critic declaring that vaccines for respiratory bugs that target a sole part of the pathogen they are meant to protect against do not work.
The claim was dismissed as erroneous by vaccine experts, who were befuddled by the secretary’s theory, espoused during an interview with CBS News.
Kennedy made the claim in explaining a controversial recent decision by political appointees at the Food and Drug Administration to delay granting a full license to Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is still given under an emergency use authorization or EUA.
Comments closedTORONTO – Ontario is reporting 155 new measles cases over the last week, pushing the province’s case count to 816 since an outbreak began in the fall.
The number of new cases has increased again after a few weeks of appearing to stabilize in the 100-per-week range, which public health physicians had taken as a sign of potential optimism.
Dr. Sarah Wilson, public health physician at Public Health Ontario, says the fact that Ontario has exceeded 800 cases is striking.
Comments closedThe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields, finds a Nature analysis of the unprecedented cuts.
The administration of US President Donald Trump began purging NIH-funded studies on topics that it deems problematic less than 50 days ago, continuously expanding its list to include research on topics ranging from COVID-19 to misinformation. Hundreds of the 30,000-plus scientists funded by the NIH yearly have been forced to halt their work after receiving notices that their research “no longer effectuates agency priorities”, and some have had to fire personnel or even shut down their laboratories.
Comments closedNearly 1 in 7 working-age US adults had experienced long COVID by late 2023, and socially disadvantaged adults were over 150% more likely to have persistent symptoms, two new studies find.
Yesterday in Communications Medicine, Daniel Kim, MD, DrPH, of Northeastern University, analyzed data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from September and November 2022 and August to October 2023 on more than 375,000 US adults, including nearly 50,000 with self-reported long COVID.
Kim assessed sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors as predictors of long COVID; estimated the risk of unemployment, financial difficulties, and anxiety and depression among working-age adults (ages 18 to 64 years) and those currently experiencing lingering symptoms; and tallied the economic effects of the resulting lost wages.
Comments closedResearchers have shown a new drug compound can prevent long COVID symptoms in mice – a landmark finding that could lead to a future treatment for the debilitating condition.
The world-first study found mice treated with the antiviral compound, developed by a multidisciplinary research team at WEHI, were protected from long term brain and lung dysfunction – key symptoms of long COVID.
Researchers hope the unprecedented results could lead to clinical trials and the first treatment for the disease in the future.
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