The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced its advisory committee’s recommendations on strains to include for the Northern Hemisphere’s 2025-26 flu season, which swap out the H3N2 components but keep the current 2009 H1N1 and influenza B strains the same. The three
Investment in medical oxygen systems could save millions of lives by filling gaps in oxygen access for more than half the world’s population and boosting pandemic preparedness, says a report published yesterday in The Lancet Global Health. The Lancet Global Health Commission
A new US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report identifies a shortage of public health workers across multiple occupations and locations that restricts the ability to perform essential functions such as disease investigation and mitigation, hazard detection, and emergency response. The US Department
In a move that could have a significant impact on US and global efforts to monitor and respond to infectious diseases, the Trump administration yesterday said it will withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). In an executive order issued within hours
UK Aid / Flickr cc The World Health Organization (WHO) today released its annual global malaria report, which documents 11 million more cases in 2023 compared to 2022, with similar death rates. While malaria remains a serious global health threat, the African
GOLFX / iStock Swedish adults who had bacterial meningitis as children earned 4.0% less in annual income, used 13.5 more days of sick leave and disability pension, and had lower educational attainment than their peers, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA
Yesterday the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) urged scientists and political leaders to bolster global research to prepare for the next pandemic by focusing on families of pathogens as well as on individual infectious microbes.
Biggereye / iStock Less than 20% of reused filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) collected from nurses amid the COVID-19 pandemic were in good enough condition to undergo sterilization, after which none retained at least 94% filtration of aerosol particles, finds a laboratory study comparing
Well into the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were reluctant to use terms like “airborne,” “airborne transmission,” and “aerosol transmission” to describe the spread of the virus through the air, while
The Department of Transportation (DOT) hasn’t created a national aviation preparedness plan for infectious disease outbreaks, despite a 2015 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation to do so, according to a new report on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. When tasked