No polio or Hep B vaccines? Spooky!

Bird Flu News:

• The California child’s confirmed H5N1 infection was genetically similar to the B3.13 strain circulating in cows and spreading to dairy workers. (CDC)
• A second Bay Area child ultimately tested negative for bird flu, but officials there are still warning against drinking raw milk. (ABC)
• The Biden Administration said it has no plans to authorize a stockpile of human bird flu vaccines. (NBC)
• A new study highlights the need for monitoring domestic cats for H5N1, in part because they have regular contact with wild animals and people. (NY Times)

Health News:

• Noro is at its peak right now, with a test positivity of 17% for the most recent data from the week of Nov. 30th (Fortune)
• RFK Jr.’s lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke approval of the polio and hepatitis B vaccines. (NY Times)
• In his Person of the Year interview, President-elect Trump said that he’d discuss ending childhood vaccination programs with RFK Jr. and cited debunked autism claims as one reason he’d consider it. (TIME)
• There were a record 12.6 million dengue cases in the Americas this year. (PAHO)
• A novel strain of extensively drug-resistant Shigella was identified in Los Angeles. (CIDRAP)
• Once again, pandemic-era telehealth reimbursement flexibilities are at risk if Congress doesn’t pass an extension by December 31st. (Modern Healthcare)
• A “ghost network” lawsuit, suing insurers for having inaccurate provider listings, may spell trouble for insurance companies. (Modern Healthcare)
• An advisory panel says the U.S. dietary guidelines should stress plant-based foods. (STAT)
• Cases are still rising in the unexplained DR Congo outbreak. Malaria was reported in some lab results, though testing is still very far from complete. (CIDRAP)
• An exciting “breakthrough of the year” could mean just 2x yearly shots to prevent HIV transmission entirely versus daily pills. (NPR)

Mental Health & Substance Use News:

• One in three Americans aged 50 to 80 reported loneliness or social isolation. (JAMA)
• ADHD diagnosis in older people has increased dramatically since 2021. (NY Times)

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call or text 988.

Best Questions:

What is going on with this mysterious ‘Disease X’ in DR Congo?

There’s a mysterious outbreak in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of Congo right now, with over 400 cases and more than 30 deaths. More than half of the cases are in young kids, and symptoms include fever, headache, cough, and shortness of breath. The Africa CDC called it ‘Disease X,’ a term used for a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a major epidemic or pandemic, but it may be premature to use that term since there’s a real possibility that the mystery illness is one we already know: malaria. The WHO said this week that 10 of 12 samples tested positive for malaria, but it’s also possible that these cases involve more than one disease. The remoteness of the area is posing a real challenge to public health response, but many more samples are in the process of being collected and sent for testing. This started back in late October, but it wasn’t until media coverage that public health officials heard about it and started to mount a response. Overall, the risk for a larger outbreak or epidemic from this particular disease seems relatively low right now. Though we are eager to see if testing confirms whether it’s malaria, a new pathogen, or some combo of illnesses, we’re not concerned about a larger outbreak at this time and know that this type of unknown illness cluster actually happens regularly throughout the world, and particularly in remote areas where humans and animals, like bats and monkeys, are living in close proximity to each other.

Sources: Scientific American, NPR

I was infected with COVID in the summer, so I didn’t get a vaccine this fall. Should I get one now?

First of all, if you haven’t gotten your COVID booster shot yet, don’t worry - you’re in the majority of Americans. But getting your vaccine can still help you stay at work and attend those holiday parties or winter trips you have planned.

We finally have some good data about when is actually the best time to get your COVID vaccine since we now have four pandemic winters behind us. It turns out that just under 3 months before the peak of a wave (assuming you haven’t been recently infected) maximizes your protection and lowers your risk of getting COVID by 5x. In the U.S., our winter peaks are almost always the first week of January, just after the holidays, so September 15th is the ideal date to get your COVID shot.

But if you were infected this summer, it’s actually best to delay your shot. If you got sick in May, June or July and haven’t gotten your COVID shot this year, now’s the time to get it. If you got sick in August or later, you’re probably protected through the winter peak right now, and the ideal time would be to get it in late winter or early spring.  For an easy-to-read version of this, we loved this table, created by Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) from data from Townsend et al., which makes it easy to know when you should get your COVID shot depending on when you last got infected.

Sources: YLE, NPR, CID

Best Read:

It’s been over a week since the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot and killed, sparking a reckoning over the state of U.S. health care that doesn’t seem to be going away.

Americans are furious over health care. Is this an Occupy Wall Street moment? - NPR

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