The Food and Drug Administration reversed its decision on Moderna’s flu vaccine and has agreed to review it for possible approval.
Just last week, Moderna announced that the agency had rejected its application for review of a new flu vaccine. The F.D.A. said the company’s research design had been flawed.
Comments closedCOVID-19 genetic material was frequently detected in hospital air during community outbreaks, even in well-ventilated settings, according to a new study published in Respiratory Medicine.
A team led by Kirby Institute researchers conducted air and surface sampling in the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU) of a large metropolitan hospital in Sydney, Australia, during two COVID-19 waves between November 2023 and July 2024. Their testing found that 39% (20 of 51) of aerosol samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
Detection was significantly more common in the ED than in the ICU. Of the positive samples, 80% were collected in the ED and 20% in the ICU.
Comments closedIn March 2025, the Province dropped its health-care mask requirement. DoNoHarm BC, an organization advocating for it to be reinstated, had been hoping that they would do so once respiratory illness season started last fall.
“We watched other provinces reenact these seasonal mask mandates, and waited and waited,” Beth Campbell Duke, a science educator, told Daily Hive. “We had a letter-writing campaign, and still there was no response.”
While people who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed are most at risk, she said that it poses a risk to everyone because no one knows how COVID-19 infection could impact them.
Comments closedUS regulators will not review Moderna’s request to license a new, potentially more effective flu shot – even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously gave the green light to the project – in a decision that could have implications for all new and updated vaccines in the US.
It’s the latest move by the Trump administration against vaccines. Officials in January decided to stop fully recommending one-third of routine childhood vaccines, including flu vaccines.
“This is likely to discourage industry from investing in future influenza vaccines, and makes working with the US FDA uncertain and problematic,” said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco.
Comments closed“Are you sick?” the Uber driver asked. “Is that why you’re wearing a mask?”
I launched into my usual monologue, delivered to strangers weekly at this point, explaining how COVID-19 transmission is still high and that I don’t want to be reinfected to worsen my existing Long COVID.
He looked at me, puzzled, through the rearview mirror. “I haven’t heard of that before,” he said, “but you look really good!”
I awkwardly stammered that I can no longer exercise, and a few years ago I could barely leave the house, almost dropping out of my graduate school program. I listed statistics of Long COVID prevalence and the compounding risks of infections.
Comments closedAs a virologist, I spend my days thinking about how to detect outbreaks of coronaviruses, mpox, West Nile and other pathogens early enough to stop them. Right now, I’m concerned about Canada’s awful flu season and the fact that we recently lost our measles-elimination status. But mostly, I’m terrified of what’s unfolding south of the border.
The consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts to the CDC and NIH will extend far beyond America. Those agencies form the backbone of North America’s infectious-disease surveillance. They track variants, monitor cross-border spread and feed data into global systems coordinated by the World Health Organization, helping everyone on Earth prepare. When those programs are dismantled, Canada loses key warning signs of influenza, RSV, measles and whatever diseases are coming next.
Comments closedThe 2025-26 Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is about 57% effective against emergency department/urgent care (ED/UC) visits and 54% effective against outpatient visits among adults roughly 4 weeks after vaccination, with considerable uncertainty, according to preliminary estimates published on the preprint server medRxiv.
A team that included researchers from the Providence Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System and Pfizer used a test-negative case-control design to estimate the early vaccine effectiveness (VE) of Pfizer’s BNT162b2 LP.8.1 vaccine against ED/UC and outpatient visits.
Participants were VA patients who had an acute respiratory infection (ARI) and underwent COVID-19 testing from September 10 to November 30, 2025.
Comments closedA new Ontario-based study is suggesting the shingles vaccine may help prevent and/or delay the onset of dementia more effectively than any existing treatment.
The study was published in Lancet Neurology and led by researchers at McMaster University and Stanford University. It analyzed health data from more than 250,000 seniors in Ontario and found the herpes zoster vaccination, also known as the shingles vaccine, helped significantly prevent dementia.
“There’s no pharmacological tool that has been shown to have such a large preventative effect,” Pascal Geldsetzer, lead researcher and Stanford University professor, told CTV News Toronto.
Comments closedLONDON – Britain and several other European countries have lost their measles elimination status, the World Health Organization said on Monday, after a jump in infections across the continent.
Spain, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan also lost their status, and the WHO urged countries to boost vaccination rates, particularly among under-protected populations, to prevent the viral disease infecting more children.
Measles is entirely preventable by vaccination, but is very contagious, and so is among the first illnesses to rebound when vaccination rates decline. It commonly causes symptoms including high fever and a rash, but can also lead to serious long-term complications and even death.
Comments closedMore than 3,000 employees at Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have been notified their jobs may be affected as federal departments continue to issue notices about possible layoffs in the public service.
Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are the latest departments to notify employees of possible job cuts in January, as the federal government looks to cut 28,000 jobs over the next four years.
Comments closedToday the United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO), one year after the Trump administration shared its intention to leave the global agency.
At that time, the United States was said to provide about 20% of the WHO’s operational budget, but this week WHO officials said the United States has failed to pay membership dues for both 2024 and 2025, leaving the global alliance with a $278 million debt.
The WHO says withdrawal is not complete until the United States pays its debts.
Comments closedNEW evidence from a prospective cohort study suggests that elevated plasma phosphorylated tau (pTau-181) may be a critical biomarker in patients experiencing neurological post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (N-PASC), particularly among essential workers.
Comments closedNationally, we are seeing very high levels of influenza and, again, a growing wave of COVID-19 infections. A new variant of influenza A H3N2 called subclade K is driving some of this epidemic. Subclade K has already appeared in Japan and Europe and is more severe, especially in the elderly and very young.
Last week, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported 39,945 hospital admissions, up from 33,301 admissions the week before. While numbers have varied some week to week, they have been relatively high. There have been 19 pediatric deaths so far this season. The CDC estimates that there have been at least 15,000,000 illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations, and 7,400 deaths from flu so far this season.
Comments closedThe Trump administration reinstated on Tuesday hundreds of employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who had been placed on administrative leave in April.
The employees are all staff members of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a C.D.C. unit charged with preventing work-related injuries.
“This moment belongs to every single person who refused to stay silent,” said Micah Niemeier-Walsh, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and the vice president of an American Federation of Government Employees union local that represents C.D.C. employees.
Comments closedHealth and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today appointed two obstetricians-gynecologists to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Both appointees have a history of questioning vaccine safety in pregnancy, and one has erroneously claimed COVID-19 vaccines caused miscarriages.
Adam Urato, MD, of UMass Memorial Health, is the first listed appointee to ACIP. In October of 2024, he wrote on X, “CDC & ACOG recommend 4 vaccines in pregnancy: Flu, Tdap, RSV, & COVID. My patients often ask: ‘How do we know that all these vaccines won’t have adverse effects on my baby & me?’ The answer is: ‘We don’t.’ Women’s vax concerns should be acknowledged & their choices supported.”
Comments closedA study of 227 individuals who experienced neurocognitive difficulties post COVID-19 infection—such as headaches, vertigo, balance dysregulation, changes in taste/smell, and brain fog—displayed a significant increase in their blood plasma of a crucial protein called tau, which is found in nerves and especially in the brain. Excess levels of tau are linked to neurodegenerative diseases and found in many Alzheimer’s patients.
Published in eBioMedicine, the study suggests that people who experience long COVID neurocognitive symptoms could be at further risk for neurodegenerative diseases.
Comments closed