Health

Current COVID-19 vaccines not ‘well-matched’ against BA.2: FDA

Current COVID-19 vaccines are not well-matched against the BA.2 sub-variant of omicron, the US Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday, as its panel of outside experts meets to discuss changes to future booster doses.
The FDA, however, said booster shots protect against serious outcomes of COVID-19, compared with the two preliminary doses.
US health officials in late March authorized a second booster dose of Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines for people aged 50 and older, citing data showing waning immunity and risks posed by omicron variants of the virus.
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“This discussion today is a much larger discussion – it’s a discussion for what do we do about the entire population, and what do we do when we think the virus has evolved further,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study from Israel found on Tuesday.
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Health

Pandemic experts express concern over avian influenza spread to humans

The ongoing global spread of “bird flu” infections to mammals including humans is a significant public health concern, senior UN medics said on Thursday, as they announced new measures to tackle airborne diseases.

Health

Violations of women’s reproductive health rights trigger rise in preventable deaths

African women are 130 times more likely to die due to pregnancy or childbirth complications than women in Europe and Northern America, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) said in a new report published on Wednesday.

Health

Nigeria first country to introduce ‘revolutionary’ meningitis vaccine

Nigeria has become the first country to roll out a “revolutionary” five-in-one vaccine against meningitis, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Friday.