Category: Science and Tech
BARDA awards $29 million to Basilea Pharmaceutica for first-in-class anti-fungal treatments
BARDA BARDA awarded an initial $29 million under an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) to Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd. Allschwil, to develop two anti-fungal therapeutics, Fosmanogepix and BAL2062, both with the potential to treat drug-resistant invasive fungal infections. Additional funding could be awarded by BARDA if contract options are exercised. Under the terms of the OTA […]
Sep 25, 2024
Surprising New Research Links Infant Mortality to Crashing Bat Populations
NYT Without bats to eat insects, farmers turned to more pesticides, a study found. That appears to have increased infant deaths. The connections are commonsense but the conclusion is shocking. Bats eat insects. When a fatal disease hit bats, farmers used more pesticides to protect crops. And that, according to a new study, led to […]
Sep 10, 2024
The Conversation When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, humans had been the only species with reported cases of the disease. While early genetic analyses pointed to horseshoe bats as the evolutionary hosts of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, no reports had yet surfaced indicating it could be transmitted from humans to […]
Sep 4, 2024
Detection and spread of high pathogenicity avian influenza virus H5N1 in the Antarctic Region
Nature Until recent events, the Antarctic was the only major geographical region in which high pathogenicity avian influenza virus (HPAIV) had never previously been detected. Here we report on the detection of clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 HPAIV in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions of South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, respectively. We initially detected H5N1 HPAIV […]
Sep 3, 2024
FDA Could Soon Limit Use of Only Drug for COVID Prevention
MedPageToday Pemivibart may have reduced activity against growing variant KP.3.1.1, agency warns. Pemivibart (Pemgarda) should only be used for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients when the combined national frequency of SARS-CoV-2 variants with substantially reduced susceptibility to the drug is less than or equal to 90%, the FDA announced on Monday. The agency […]
Aug 28, 2024
Can you get sick from the germs in toilet plumes?
Washington Post When you flush a toilet, invisible plumes, which may contain viruses, can shoot almost five feet into the air and spread horizontally within a short time, a study showed. Is it true that there’s an invisible plume of pathogens that spews out of the toilet when you flush it — and that it […]
Aug 27, 2024
Can Flu Antivirals Treat Severe Cases or Prevent Influenza?
MedPageToday Although antivirals had some positive effects on the treatment of severe influenza and prevention of the flu, many effects on outcomes were uncertain, according to two World Health Organization-funded systematic reviews and network meta-analyses. In the first analysis, treatment of severe influenza with oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and peramivir (Rapivab) appeared to reduce the length of […]
Aug 27, 2024
Key Avian Influenza Enzyme Mutates Enabling Virus Replication in Mammals
Technology Networks Immunology and Microbiology A new publication sheds light on how a key avian influenza virus enzyme can mutate to allow the virus to replicate in mammals. In recent years, public health measures, surveillance, and vaccination have helped bring about significant progress in reducing the impact of seasonal flu epidemics, caused by human influenza […]
Aug 20, 2024
Yahoo News Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Bristol, and Edinburgh have revealed that COVID-19 vaccinations may significantly reduce the incidence of arterial thromboses, a leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. The study, published in Nature Communications and supported by the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre at Health Data Research U.K., analyzed de-identified health records of 46 […]
Aug 14, 2024
An unexpected gene may help determine whether you survive flu or COVID-19
Science Study of blood from severely ill patients implicates a gene involved in the production of fatty acids After a 2013 outbreak of avian influenza in China killed about 35% of the people it infected, immunologist Katherine Kedzierska of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity set out to answer a baffling question: Why […]
Aug 13, 2024