Healthcare & Laboratory News

The Washington Post (5/11, A1, Vazquez) reports, “The 17 Americans evacuated from a cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak arrived in the United States early Monday and will be assessed at a specialized treatment facility in Nebraska, including one passenger who tested positive for the Andes virus and another who has mild symptoms.” The cruise ship “passengers will receive clinical assessments and care at the ASPR Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the Health and Human Services Department said in a statement.” The one “positive test marks the first confirmed case in an American passenger of the Hondius cruise ship.” The affected “passenger is asymptomatic, Nebraska Medicine said.” The Hill (5/11, Suter) reports, “A French passenger also tested positive, according to officials, while nearly all passengers on the ship have been evacuated.” Also reporting was Politico (5/10, Gardner, Lim).

STAT (5/11, Branswell, Subscription Publication) reports European researchers have “diagnosed a number of men who have sex with other men with dermatophilosis, a skin disease that normally infects livestock, even though the cases had no known exposure to affected animals.” In two studies published ahead of print in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, “doctors reported small clusters of infections” in Barcelona and Lyon, “with the latter group having some ties to Paris and several other French cities.” According to STAT, the “clusters of infections are in some ways reminiscent of the emergence of mpox in 2022 in networks of gay men and other men who have sex with men. But people who have diagnosed some of these dermatophilosis cases describe a disease that is much milder in presentation.” To date, all diagnosed cases have “either cleared up on their own or were treated successfully with antibiotics.”

Infectious Disease Advisor (5/11, Neale) reports a study found that “men who have sex with men (MSM) receiving HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may be at increased risk of acquiring other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).” The study included 1,017 HIV-negative MSM, “of whom the median age was 33 years. More than half (54.7%) of patients were receiving PrEP at baseline, with 83.7% reporting ongoing use during the study period.” Researchers observed that “approximately 71.8% of patients were diagnosed with at least 1 STI, with multiple infections frequently detected.” Compared with patients who indicated no PrEP use, “those receiving PrEP exhibited a higher prevalence of C trachomatis (43.1% vs 26.5%). When focusing on anorectal infections, patients receiving PrEP demonstrated higher prevalences of C trachomatis (35.3% vs 20.5%), M genitalium (31.4% vs 23.5%), and N gonorrhoeae (26.1% vs 16.9%).” The study was published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

The New York Times (5/11, Jewett, Stolberg) reports HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “has said little publicly about vaccines in recent months,” but “he has not abandoned his quest for evidence that they are unsafe.” Behind the scenes, “Kennedy is spearheading an intense push, across health agencies under his purview, for government scientists and federal data contractors to examine his long-held theory that vaccines are helping to fuel an epidemic of chronic disease, according to multiple people familiar with the effort.” Those people “said the wide-ranging inquiry is a top priority for” Kennedy. The inquiry “resurrects research into a number of ideas Mr. Kennedy has espoused, including whether vaccines are linked to autism and whether thimerosal...is dangerous.” Career scientists at the FDA and the CDC “are conducting the research alongside contractors who provide statistical expertise and access to millions of patient medical records.”

The New York Times (5/11, Mandavilli) reports results from a small study will show that “a single infusion of immune cells engineered to recognize the virus” resulted in two people suppressing their HIV “to undetectable levels, one of them for nearly two years.” In the study, “scientists at Caring Cross, a nonprofit focused on developing affordable immunotherapies, engineered immune cells from each study participant to carry two molecules on the cell surface. Both molecules bind to H.I.V. and kill infected cells, but one also prevents the immune cells from becoming infected.” Researchers believe the “treatment is years, if not decades, from being widely available, but the study offers what scientists call ‘proof of concept,’ and the tantalizing hope that a single shot could one day offer lifelong relief from H.I.V.” The study findings will be presented at the American Society of Gene + Cell Therapy’s annual meeting this week.

Infectious Disease Advisor (5/11, Neale) reports a study found that “patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), or parainfluenza virus (PIV) demonstrate a higher risk for acute respiratory failure than those with influenza.” The study “included 4927 hospitalized adults...with viral respiratory infection.” Researchers observed that “acute respiratory failure occurred in 583 patients.” They found that, “in regard to crude incidence, acute respiratory failure occurred most frequently in patients with SARS-CoV-2 (24.1%), followed by PIV (12.3%) and RSV (11.1%). When compared with influenza A/B, the adjusted risk for acute respiratory failure was significantly higher for patients with SARS-CoV-2, PIV, and RSV.” The study was published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

The American Journal of Managed Care (5/8, McCrear) reports, “Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid; Pfizer) may be most cost-effective when used for high-risk adults aged 18 to 64 years with COVID-19, according to a new study.” Investigators came to this conclusion after conducting a study in which “a total of 1736 participants were” randomly assigned “to receive nirmatrelvir-ritonavir plus usual care, while 1768 participants received usual care alone.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Reuters (5/8, Lapid) reported in a newsletter that “for the first time, scientists have identified human antibodies capable of neutralizing the measles virus, which could lead to a new approach for preventing and treating the highly infectious disease.” A study published in Cell Host & Microbe found that “the antibodies ‌attach themselves to key sites on the measles virus and prevent the virus from entering host cells.” For the study, researchers “isolated measles antibodies from a woman who had been vaccinated against the virus many years earlier.” They noted that an infusion of antibodies “that bind to two key spots on the virus...to inactivate it” resulted in a “500-fold lower viral load in a rodent model of measles infection when given either before measles exposure or within 24 to 48 hours after infection.” Notably, “one ​antibody called 3A12 rendered the circulating virus undetectable, the researchers found.”

NBC News (5/9, Edwards, Bendix, Lozano, Smith) reported, “Seventeen American passengers aboard the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak will quarantine at a Nebraska facility that specializes in handling patients with highly communicable diseases, health officials said.” At the National Quarantine Unit, “teams will assess them and determine any necessary quarantine measures.” Meanwhile, The Hill (5/8) reported the CDC “has activated its 24/7 emergency center and classified hantavirus at the lowest activation level, according to a report Thursday evening.” In a Level 3 response, some CDC Emergency Operations Center “staff may be brought in to assist disease experts and their staff in responding to an outbreak.” The New York Times (5/9, Anthes) reported that although there “are no targeted treatments...and no widely available vaccines,” teams of scientists “around the world have been working...to develop hantavirus treatments and vaccines.” Given its recent attention, treatments in development “could be moved through the pipeline rapidly if hantavirus interventions became a priority,” according to experts.

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