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Tag: World Health Organization

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

Former director of the CDC predicts the next pandemic will be from bird flu

Published June 17, 2024

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Published by: The Independent
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By Gustaf Kilander

The former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, has said that the next pandemic could be from bird flu.

The World Health Organization recently announced the first human death from bird flu in Mexico, and the virus has been found in cattle across the US.

“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield told NewsNation on Friday.

He added that the mortality rate is likely to be much higher from bird flu compared to Covid-19.

While the mortality rate was 0.6 per cent for Covid-19, Redfield said the mortality for the bird flu would probably be “somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.”

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Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Researchers estimate vaccines have saved 154 million lives over past half-century

Published May 9, 2024

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Published by: Medical Xpress
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By Bob Yirka

An international team of health and medical researchers including workers at the WHO, working with economists and modeling specialists, has found that the use of vaccines to prevent or treat disease has saved the lives of approximately 154 million people over the past half-century.

In their study, published in The Lancet, the group used mathematical and statistical modeling to develop estimates for lives saved due to vaccines and then added them together to find the total.

Continue readingResearchers estimate vaccines have saved 154 million lives over past half-century
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Topic: airborne transmissionView all posts for the topic: airborne transmission

WHO experts now agree diseases like COVID spread through the air

Published April 18, 2024

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Published by: CBC News / Reuters
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The World Health Organization (WHO) and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.

The Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step toward working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.

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Topic: ScotlandView all posts for the topic: Scotland

Government ‘dismissed’ concerns over airborne Covid transmission, inquiry told

Published March 20, 2024

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Published by: Independent
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By Sarah Ward

The Scottish Government “dismissed” concerns about the airborne transmission of Covid during the pandemic, an inquiry has heard.

Colin Poolman, director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Scotland, also paid tribute at the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry to the “ultimate sacrifice” made by health workers who lost their lives in the pandemic.

He told the inquiry that attempts were made from 2020 by the RCN to raise concerns about airborne transmission with the Scottish Government, due to considerations about personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilation.

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Topic: COVID-19 timelineView all posts for the topic: COVID-19 timeline

COVID-19 timeline: How the deadly virus and the world’s response have evolved over 4 years

Published March 11, 2024

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Published by: ABC News
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By Mary Kekatos

Monday marks four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

Since the first cases in Wuhan, China, in 2019, there have been millions of infections and deaths around the world.

There have also been major successes including vaccines for nearly all age groups, the development of antiviral drugs to treat those at risk of severe illness and the proliferation of at-home tests.

Continue readingCOVID-19 timeline: How the deadly virus and the world’s response have evolved over 4 years
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Topic: the pandemic is not overView all posts for the topic: the pandemic is not over

COVID levels are up to 19 times higher than reported, WHO says as it warns of the potential dangers of repeat reinfection: ‘We don’t know everything about this virus’

Published January 12, 2024

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Published by: Fortune
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By Erin Prater

Five years, 10 years, 20 years from now, what are we going to see in terms of cardiac impairment, pulmonary impairment, neurologic impairment? It’s year five in the pandemic, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about it.

—Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove
Continue readingCOVID levels are up to 19 times higher than reported, WHO says as it warns of the potential dangers of repeat reinfection: ‘We don’t know everything about this virus’
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Topic: JN.1View all posts for the topic: JN.1

Holiday gatherings and a new variant have driven up COVID cases globally, the UN health agency says

Published January 10, 2024

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Published by: The Associated Press
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The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information.

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Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Just 15% of Canadians got updated COVID vaccines this fall, new figures show

Published December 20, 2023

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Published by: CBC News
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By Lauren Pelley

Canadians raced to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first years of the pandemic, but data suggests there’s far less of a rush to get the latest shots available this fall.

Federal figures show only 15 per cent of the population aged five and up had received an updated vaccine by Dec. 3. And while older age groups had higher uptake rates, more than half of higher-risk older adults still hadn’t gotten a dose by early December, either.

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WHO designates JN.1 as separate COVID-19 variant of interestA healthcare worker conducts genomic sequencing of the SARS-COV-2 virus at the National Virology Laboratory in Honduras, on March 29, 2023. The healthcare worker is wearing a light blue translucent protective gown and cap, teal blue gloves, and a white respirator. Photo by: Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) / World Health Organization (WHO).
Topic: variantsView all posts for the topic: variants

WHO designates JN.1 as separate COVID-19 variant of interest

Published December 19, 2023

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

Due to its rapid growth and potential to add to the respiratory virus burden in Northern Hemisphere countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) today designated JN.1, part of the BA.2.86 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, as its own variant of interest.

The announcement came following an assessment from the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 evolution.

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Topic: pneumonia outbreaksView all posts for the topic: pneumonia outbreaks

Doit-on s’inquiéter de l’épidémie de pneumonie en Chine ?

Published November 29, 2023

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Published by: Radio-Canada
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By Mélanie Meloche-Holubowski

In China, the recent outbreak of hospitalizations due to childhood pneumonia has attracted the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). The primary cause appears to be Mycoplasma pneumoniae. In the height of influenza season, should we be concerned about this pathogen? Here are five questions to understand.

Continue readingDoit-on s’inquiéter de l’épidémie de pneumonie en Chine ?
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WHO upgrades BA.2.86 to COVID-19 variant of interest as US proportions growElectron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. Image captured and colourized at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. Photo by: NIAID. Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Topic: variantsView all posts for the topic: variants

WHO upgrades BA.2.86 to COVID-19 variant of interest as US proportions grow

Published November 27, 2023

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week reclassified the Omicron BA.2.86 variant—and its offshoots, including JN.1—as a variant of interest as global proportions grow, including in the United States, where it now makes up about 9% of circulating viruses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

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Topic: ChinaView all posts for the topic: China

Pneumonia outbreak in Chinese kids linked to known pathogens

Published November 27, 2023

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Chris Dall

The surge in respiratory infections in young children in northern China is being driven primarily by known viral and bacterial infections and not by a novel pathogen, the World Health Organization (WHO) said late last week in an update.

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Topic: World Health OrganizationView all posts for the topic: World Health Organization

Ivermectin warnings, a new COVID-19 antiviral, a changing threshold for care: These are the WHO’s updated treatment guidelines

Published November 10, 2023

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Published by: CTV News
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By Alexandra Mae Jones

The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, including categories of hospitalization risk to help doctors tailor treatment, and recommendations surrounding a new antiviral designed specifically to tackle the disease.

Continue readingIvermectin warnings, a new COVID-19 antiviral, a changing threshold for care: These are the WHO’s updated treatment guidelines
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Topic: new waveView all posts for the topic: new wave

COVID-19 : l’OMS s’inquiète de « tendances préoccupantes » avant l’hiver

Published September 6, 2023

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Published by: Radio-Canada / Agence France-Presse
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The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday expressed concern about “worrying trends” regarding COVID-19 as winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, calling for increased vaccination and surveillance of the virus.

Continue readingCOVID-19 : l’OMS s’inquiète de « tendances préoccupantes » avant l’hiver
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Topic: droplet dogmaView all posts for the topic: droplet dogma

The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill

Published May 13, 2021

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Published by: Wired
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By Megan Molteni

Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. It was just past 1 pm Geneva time on April 3, 2020, but in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Marr lives with her husband and two children, dawn was just beginning to break.

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