Healthcare & Laboratory News

The AP (5/27, Vertuno) reports a bill approved by the Texas Legislature and sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott “would make it significantly easier for parents to enroll their children in school without standard vaccinations for diseases such as measles, whooping cough, polio and hepatitis A and B.” The bill would let parents “download the required forms from a website instead of contacting state health officials and waiting for one to come in the mail.” Supporters “say the bill streamlines an already legal exemption process that allows families to avoid vaccines for reasons of conscience, religious beliefs or medical reasons.” Although the bill “does not change which vaccines are required,” critics argue that “easing the exemption process opens a door to further outbreaks with potentially deadly results.”

The AP (5/27, Khaled, Magdy) reports that a “new cholera outbreak in Sudan has killed 172 people and sickened more than 2,500 over the past week, authorities said Tuesday.” Health officials said the “bulk of the cases were reported in the capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman, but cholera was also detected in the provinces of North Kordofan, Sennar, Gazira, White Nile and Nile River.” Sudan’s Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim on Saturday “said the increase in cholera cases just in the Khartoum region has been estimated to average 600 to 700 per week over the past four weeks.” According to Joyce Bakker, the Sudan coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières, “the alarming spike began in mid-May, with MSF teams treating almost 2,000 suspected cholera cases in the past week alone.”

Reuters (5/27, Sunny, Mahatole) reports the FDA has approved Sanofi’s meningococcal vaccine, MenQuadfi (MenACWY), for use in infants as young as six weeks. This marks the first approval of a meningococcal vaccine for this age group, as MenQuadfi is “already approved for individuals aged two years and older to protect against the four most common strains of meningococcal bacteria – A, C, W and Y.” The approval was based “on data from three late-stage studies involving more than 6,000 participants aged six weeks to 19 months, which showed that MenQuadfi was as effective” as GSK’s Menveo “when co-administered with other routine pediatric vaccines.”

The AP (5/27, Stobbe) reports that on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. In a 58-second video posted on the social media site X, Kennedy said he removed COVID-19 shots from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for those groups.” According to the AP, the idea of “changing the recommendations is not completely out of the blue,” as experts have “increasingly discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older – who are among those most as risk for death and hospitalization.” A CDC advisory panel is set to meet in the coming weeks “to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among its options are suggesting shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated.” Reuters (5/27, Mishra, Erman) reports Kennedy said in the video, “Last year, the Biden Administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of clinical data to support repeat booster strategy in children.” The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices would traditionally “meet and vote on changes to the immunization schedule or recommendations on who should get vaccines before the director of the CDC made a final call. The committee has not voted on these changes.”

Reuters (5/23, Santhosh) reported Moderna said Friday that it had “filed a marketing application for the review of its updated COVID-19 vaccine” with the FDA. Branded as Spikevax, Moderna said the submission for the new vaccine “is based on guidance from the FDA, which advised that the shots should be updated to target strains that are a part of JN.1 lineage, with a preference for the LP.8.1 variant.” Government data indicate the LP.8.1 strain “accounts for about 70% of total cases in the U.S.” Moderna expects to “launch the updated vaccine by mid-August,” but COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers are “seeing greater regulatory scrutiny and facing tighter requirements for their shots that could increase their expenses.”

Infectious Disease Advisor (5/23, Basilio) reported a systematic review and meta-analysis found that “clinical trial data and real-world evidence suggest remdesivir significantly improves survival and reduces rehospitalization risk among inpatients with SARS-CoV-2 across all disease severity levels.” Researchers analyzed a total of 122 unique studies “of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and real-world studies published from January 2019 through December 2023 to summarize the effectiveness of remdesivir among inpatients with COVID-19.” The analysis “showed a significant overall survival benefit among inpatients with COVID-19 who received remdesivir, highlighting the need to ensure COVID-19 treatment recommendations remain aligned with evolving evidence.” The review was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Infectious Disease Advisor (5/23, Basilio) reported a study found that “vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials for the prevention of highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 in pediatric populations should be prioritized as the virus evolves due to the high risk for severe infection in this group.” Although the risk for “avian influenza A/H5N1 virus infection is low in humans, infants and children typically show high rates of symptomatic influenza infection, particularly during pandemics.” Moreover, there is no FDA-approved “avian influenza vaccine for pediatric patients in the national vaccine stockpile.” Researchers concluded, “One of the greatest challenges in preventing HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] A/H5N1 infection in the pediatric population will inevitably be in implementation.” Therefore, “it is critical that pediatric clinical trials of A/H5N1 vaccine candidates are adapted and prioritized.” The study was published in The Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

CBS News (5/26, Moniuszko, Brown Chau) reports the CDC has confirmed that “cases of the new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, linked to a large surge in China, have been detected in multiple locations across the United States.” A CDC spokesperson said last week, “CDC is aware of reported cases of COVID-19 NB.1.8.1 in China and is in regular contact with international partners.” The spokesperson also “said that, so far, too few U.S. sequences have been reported of NB.1.8.1 to be included in the agency’s variant estimates dashboard.”

Healio (5/23, Stulpin) reported a study presented at the SHEA Spring meeting found that “a hand hygiene intervention, which encouraged patients and visitors to the participating units to perform audits” of healthcare workers (HCWs), successfully improved compliance. In the pilot program, “a poster with program information and a QR code linked to the audit form was placed in each room and/or handed to patients and visitors. Patients were instructed to scan the QR code to access the audit form which included three questions regarding which location they were at, if the HCWs performed hand hygiene and if the patient/visitor would be comfortable asking staff to perform hand hygiene.” Patient observation audits indicated that “the HCW hand hygiene compliance rate averaged 92% in the inpatient units across 5 months.” In the outpatient units, “the average HCW hand hygiene compliance rate was also 92%.”

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