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Tag: European Union

Smoke from Canada’s wildfires killed nine-year-old Carter Vigh – and 82,000 others around the world

Amber Vigh had taken the usual precautions when bringing her nine-year-old son, Carter, to summer camp in July 2023. There were no fires near their home in British Columbia, Canada. Her air quality app showed low levels of pollution. She could not smell any smoke.

Carter, a music-loving Lego enthusiast who had asthma, brought along his smiling shark tooth-patterned emergency kit that held an inhaler, allergy pill and EpiPen. When smoke did roll in from the north, Vigh took him indoors.

But at home that evening, Carter began to cough uncontrollably. Vigh and her husband, James, followed the doctors’ checklist – emergency inhaler, drink of water, steroid inhaler – and gave him a bath to cool down. Then, “all of a sudden, he started coughing again like crazy”, said Vigh.

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Antihistamine nasal spray prevents COVID-19, study finds

Results from a single-center randomized controlled trial published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine show that azelastine, an antihistamine nasal spray used as a preventive measure, was associated with a 69% reduction of COVID-19 infection.

Azelastine is a widely available over-the-counter treatment for seasonal allergies (hay fever).

“This clinical trial is the first to demonstrate a protective effect in a real-world setting,” said Robert Bals, MD, PhD, a professor at Saarland University in Germany and senior author of the study, in a university press release.

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Wildfire smoke far more dangerous to health than thought, say scientists

Choking smoke spewed by wildfires is far more dangerous than previously thought, a new study has found, with death tolls from short-term exposure to fine particulates underestimated by 93%.

Researchers found that 535 people in Europe died on average each year between 2004 and 2022 as a result of breathing in the tiny toxic particles known as PM2.5 that are released when wildfires rage.

Under standard methods, which assume PM2.5 from wildfires is as deadly as from other sources, such as traffic, they would have expected just 38 deaths a year.

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Eli Lilly says it will raise drug prices in Europe to ‘make them lower’ in U.S.

Eli Lilly said Thursday that it would increase the prices of medicines in Europe and other developed markets “in order to make them lower” in the U.S., an apparent response to the Trump administration’s calls to do so. It singled out the list price of its popular weight-loss drug in the U.K. as part of that effort.

The announcement is among the first moves by a major drugmaker to raise prices abroad in order to lower them in the U.S., in line with President Trump’s agenda. But it’s not clear if these actions would actually increase the amount of revenue that Lilly earns abroad, since governments and private providers that cover drugs often negotiate discounts off the list prices. Lilly did not immediately announce any new price reductions in the U.S.

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Lab-made sugar-coated particle blocks Covid-19 infection — Possible new treatment on the horizon

Groundbreaking research led by a Swansea University academic has revealed a synthetic glycosystem — a sugar-coated polymer nanoparticle — that can block Covid-19 from infecting human cells, reducing infection rates by nearly 99%.

The glycosystem is a specially designed particle that mimics natural sugars found on human cells. These sugars, known as polysialosides, are made of repeating units of sialic acid — structures that viruses often target to begin infection. By copying this structure, the synthetic molecule acts as a decoy, binding to the virus’s spike protein and preventing it from attaching to real cells.

Unlike vaccines, which trigger immune responses, this molecule acts as a physical shield, offering a novel approach to infection prevention.

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Analysis: 2024-25 COVID vaccines offered strong protection against worst outcomes in seniors

The 2024-25 COVID mRNA vaccines targeting JN.1 were highly effective in protecting against hospitalization and death for at least 4 months in a cohort of Danish citizens aged 65 and older by October 1, 2024. The new analysis estimating the vaccine efficacy (VE) of last season’s COVID vaccines was published earlier this week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

In total, 894,560 Danish residents were included in the study, with a median age of 76. By Jan 31, 2025, 820,229 (91.7%) of the participants had received a JN.1 vaccine. Among those without updated JN.1 vaccination (74,331), 278 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 84 deaths were observed during 25.6 million person-days.

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COVID hospitalization linked to cognitive impairment 2 years later

Almost 20% of people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 infections early in the pandemic still had signs of impairment with brain function 2 years after infection, finds a new study in Scientific Reports.

The study population came from Portugal, in a region hit hard by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on hospital admission episodes and SARS-CoV-2 infection status from March 2020 to February 2021, the authors identified four groups: group 1 (101) hospitalized for COVID-19 infections, group 2 (87) hospitalized but uninfected with COVID-19, group 3 (252) infected but not requiring hospitalization, and group 4 (258) uninfected and not hospitalized for any reason.

Cognitive assessments were conducted in two parts 2 years after infection, a general screening using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and a subsequent neuropsychological assessment conducted by one of four psychologists if the score of the general screening was low. Overall, verbal memory, visual memory, executive functions, language, and information processing speed and attention were evaluated.

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Childhood vaccines were a global success story. Misinformation and other obstacles are slowing that progress, a study shows

Routine vaccines have prevented the deaths of about 154 million children around the world over the past 50 years, a new study shows, but efforts have been slowing recently, allowing for the growth of some vaccine-preventable diseases. This backslide could lead to many more unnecessary illnesses and deaths without an increased effort to vaccinate children and counter misinformation.

The report, published Tuesday in the medical journal The Lancet, says that over the past five decades, the World Health Organization’s Expanded Programme on Immunization has vaccinated more than 4 billion children. This doubling of global coverage of vaccines has prevented countless cases of tuberculosis, measles, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

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COVID-19 Disease Burden Remains Greater Than Influenza, Study Shows

Researchers in Denmark conducted a large-scale evaluation of the disease burdens associated with COVID-19 and influenza. Their conclusion? COVID-19 has a greater impact than influenza, resulting in more hospitalizations and deaths. These findings, they note, emphasize the continued need for a strong public health response.

COVID-19 Exhibits Greater Disease Burden Than Influenza

To compare the disease burden of COVID-19 and influenza, the researchers evaluated data available from Danish health registries from May 16, 2022 to June 7, 2024. The results were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. A commentary about the findings was published in the same issue of the journal.

During this period, the risk of hospitalization due to COVID-19 was approximately two times higher than the risk of hospitalization due to influenza. The risk of death was approximately three times higher. The researchers note that these increased risks were greater during the first year of the study period but still were evident during the second year. The risk of mortality, for example, was five times greater for COVID-19 during the first year of the study. That increased risk dropped during the second year, but COVID-19 still had a two and a half times greater risk of mortality than influenza.

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Scientists have lost their jobs or grants in US cuts. Foreign universities want to hire them

As the Trump administration cut billions of dollars in federal funding to scientific research, thousands of scientists in the U.S. lost their jobs or grants…

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COVID-19 vaccination reduces risk of ‘long COVID’ in adults

COVID-19 vaccination reduced the risk of developing ‘long COVID’ by approximately 27% in adults fully vaccinated before infection, according to a literature review carried out…

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Smartwatch Data: Study Finds Early Health Differences in Long COVID Patients

People who later experienced persistent shortness of breath or fatigue after a COVID infection were already taking significantly fewer steps per day and had a higher resting heart rate before contracting the virus, according to a CSH study published in npj Digital Medicine. This may indicate lower fitness levels or pre-existing conditions as potential risk factors

Between April 2020 and December 2022, over 535,000 people in Germany downloaded and activated the Corona Data Donation App (CDA). Of these, more than 120,000 voluntarily shared daily data from their smartwatches and fitness trackers with researchers, providing insights into vital functions such as resting heart rate and step count.

“These high-resolution data served as the starting point for our study,” explains CSH researcher Katharina Ledebur. “We were able to compare vital signs in 15-minute intervals before, during, and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

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3 vaccine doses cut long-COVID risk by over 60%, analysis suggests

In a Swedish cohort, the risk of long COVID was much lower for vaccinated than unvaccinated participants in the year after infection, even when restricting the analyses to subgroups based on variant, age, sex, and previous infection status, estimates a study published last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Karolinska Institutet researchers in Stockholm analyzed data from five registries to compare rates of persistent COVID-19 symptoms, or post-COVID condition [PCC], in adults infected from January 2021 to February 2022 by vaccination status in the 14 days before infection. Follow-up was 365 to 660 days.

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Severe COVID-19 may be a risk factor for multiple sclerosis

COVID-19 may be a risk factor for multiple sclerosis (MS). This has been shown by new research at Örebro University and Örebro University Hospital, Sweden. The study is published in the journal Brain Communications.

“We saw a raised risk of MS among people who had severe COVID-19. However, only an extremely small number of people who had severe COVID-19 received a subsequent MS diagnosis,” says Scott Montgomery, professor in clinical epidemiology.

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Long COVID: SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Accumulation Linked to Long-Lasting Brain Effects

Researchers from Helmholtz Munich and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) have identified a mechanism that may explain the neurological symptoms of Long COVID. The study shows that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein remains in the brain’s protective layers, the meninges, and the skull’s bone marrow for up to four years after infection. This persistent presence of the spike protein could trigger chronic inflammation in affected individuals and increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. The team, led by Prof. Ali Ertürk, Director at the Institute for Intelligent Biotechnologies at Helmholtz Munich, also found that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce the accumulation of the spike protein in the brain. However, the persistence of spike protein after infection in the skull and meninges offers a target for new therapeutic strategies.

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Tour de France Reinstates COVID-19 Measures as More Cases Emerge in the Peloton

The Tour de France has reinstated COVID-19 protective measures, requiring race organizers, media, and guests to wear masks when in contact with riders and team staff. This protocol was announced by race organizer ASO on Sunday morning after several recent COVID-19 cases among the peloton.

“In order to limit health risks, it is now compulsory to wear a mask in the various areas where you will be in contact with the riders and members of the cycling teams,” read the statement from the ASO.

Riders who have abandoned the race due to the virus include Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), and Michael Mørkøv (Astana-Qazaqstan). Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) remains in the Tour despite testing positive, as the rules currently allow.

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Finland to start bird flu vaccinations for humans, in world first

Finland plans to offer preemptive bird flu vaccination as soon as next week to some workers with exposure to animals, health authorities said on Tuesday, making it the first country in the world to do so.

The Nordic country has bought vaccines for 10,000 people, each consisting of two injections, as part of a joint EU procurement of up to 40 million doses for 15 nations from manufacturer CSL Seqirus (CSL.AX).

The European Commission said Finland would be the first country to roll out the vaccine.

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COVID Patient’s Infection Lasts Record 613 Days—and Accumulated Over 50 Mutations

A Covid-19 patient with a weakened immune system incubated a highly mutated novel strain over 613 days before succumbing to an underlying illness, researchers in the Netherlands found.

The patient, a 72-year-old man with a blood disorder, failed to mount a strong immune response to multiple Covid shots before catching the omicron variant in February 2022. Detailed analysis of specimens collected from more than two dozen nose and throat swabs found the coronavirus developed resistance to sotrovimab, a Covid antibody treatment, within a few weeks, scientists at the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Experimental and Molecular Medicine said. It later acquired over 50 mutations, including some that suggested an enhanced ability to evade immune defenses, they said.

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