The World Health Assembly (WHA) begins May 27th and the biggest item on the agenda should be the adoption of the pandemic agreement. Negotiations were set to end in March but will continue into April. As the Straits Times (Singapore) reports, “Scarred by COVID-19, which shredded economies, overturned societies, crippled healthcare systems and killed millions of people, countries are trying to craft an international accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. But while they largely agree on the principles of what should be done when the next pandemic strikes, nations are still at odds over how far they are prepared to go to turn those notions into binding commitments.” Health Policy Watch (Switzerland) reports even with the overtime negotiations, “the best case scenario is for the WHA to adopt an ‘instrument of essentials’, a bare-bones text that will be fleshed out over the next 12 to 24 months in advance of the proposed Conference of Parties, according to people close to the talks.”
AVAC’s Samantha Rick told Politico Pro last week, “The draft puts us in serious jeopardy: We are so close to having a sorely needed agreement on how countries will operate in the wake of the next pandemic, yet Global North countries are risking this all to satisfy the interests of pharmaceutical companies. There are places in the draft where it seems countries are finally coming to some baseline consensus, but the textual edits made by Member States this week in the Article on Pathogen Access and Benefits, which is the lynchpin of the entire agreement, show that we are very far from reaching consensus. Without a shift in the US delegation’s position, we’ll have no agreement at all. The US seems to have taken a knife to the text, rendering it toothless. It seems that if the US has its way in this Article, there will be no system to compel benefits sharing, which is the whole point of the Article. The US delegation must compromise and permit an opt-in.”
For more information on the pandemic agreement, check out this backgrounder from KFF.
If You Are in a Hurry
- Read STAT on a new human avian flu infection in the US.
- The read The Washington Post on efforts to develop a vaccine in case there are more cases in humans and another The Washington Post article that breaks down avian flu in humans.
- Read an urgent call in Health Policy Watch to respond with equity to the mpox crisis in DRC and other African countries.
- Read Devex on what GAVI’s investment in African vaccine manufacturing could mean.
- Read Nature on efforts by people with long COVID to influence the way long COVID trials are being designed and carried out.
Case of H5N1 Avian Flu Identified in Man in Texas
STAT (US) reports, “Texas health officials reported Monday that an individual who had been in contact with cattle has contracted H5N1 avian flu, only the second case ever recorded in the U.S. The person had contact with dairy cattle that are believed to have been infected with the virus, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement. It went on to say that the individual’s only symptom is eye inflammation…” The New York Times (US) reports, “The announcement adds a worrying dimension to an outbreak that has affected millions of birds and sea mammals worldwide and, most recently, cows in the United States. So far, there are no signs that the virus has evolved in ways that would help it spread more easily among people, federal officials have said.”
The Washington Post (US) reports, “Federal officials are preparing for the possibility of additional human cases of bird flu, testing components to create a vaccine after a Texas dairy worker was infected with the highly virulent virus, even as they stress the United States remains far from needing to activate a full-blown emergency response. Two candidate vaccine viruses — essentially the building blocks manufacturers use to produce a vaccine — appear well matched to protect against the H5N1 strain circulating among dairy cattle and birds, according to federal health officials. It’d probably be weeks to months before those shots could first be made available if needed, according to a Health and Human Services official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.
A separate article in The Washington Post notes, “The risk to the general public remains low, but experts are concerned about the possibility of the H5N1 virus evolving and more easily spreading from birds to other mammals.” This article is a handy explainer for avian flu in humans.
Mpox: A Test Case for Global Intent on Pandemic Preparedness
Prof Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, Director General of the DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research, and colleagues write in Health Policy Watch (Switzerland), “At a time when the world is negotiating the best way forward for sustained preparedness to address pandemics, it is still exhibiting collective failure to learn from past outbreaks and a glaring gap in global health security. Mpox is one case in point – and a test case for global intent on pandemic preparedness…. Despite the growing threat posed by the disease, almost no mpox vaccines and few therapeutics have reached Nigeria, DRC or other West African countries at the epicenter of the epidemic. Moreover, critical funding for research and the development of more effective, affordable and accessible diagnostic tools, vaccines, and treatments remains woefully insufficient…. Mpox isn’t just a test of our global intent on preparedness – it’s a test of our humanity. In honoring the memory of the young victims, like an eight-day-old baby girl in DRC, we must pledge to do better, act faster, and create a global health infrastructure that is as inclusive as it is effective.”
Multiple Outbreaks in DRC
Precision Vaccinations News (US) reports, “During a recent UN Geneva press briefing, two World Health Organization (WHO) leaders confirmed that the overall health situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is worsening… DRC is facing its worst cholera outbreak since 2017, with 50,000 suspected cases and 470 deaths recorded in 2023…. DRC is also battling the largest epidemic of measles recorded since 2019, with close to 28,000 cases and 750 deaths so far in 2024…. In addition, the still-emerging mpox outbreak has been rising across the country over the last year. Close to 4,000 suspected cases and 27 deaths have been recorded so far in 2024, which represents a higher case fatality than what was seen during the global outbreak.”
Mpox Cases Rise in US
ABC News (US) reports, “Mpox cases are on the rise in the U.S., increasing to almost double what they were at the same time last year, according to new CDC data…. There is a national year-to-date estimate of 511 cases as of mid-March, compared to 287 cases during the same period last year. New York City has been dealing with over 100 cases so far this year, whereas last year, the city only had 30.”
CIDRAP (US) reports, “Bavarian Nordic today announced the commercial launch of its vaccine against mpox and smallpox, which means the vaccine will now be available outside of designated clinics that were tapped to administer doses from the US government's vaccine supply…. The commercial launch of the product, called Jynneos, will allow patients to get the vaccine at more locations, including clinics and pharmacies. Last October, federal health officials recommended the vaccine for routine use adults at risk for mpox infection.”
News Medical (UK) reports, “New research to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April) shows that the antibodies produced by Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara - Bavarian Nordic (MVA-BN) vaccination against mpox wane significantly within a year of receiving the vaccination – but in people with pre-existing immunity due to childhood smallpox vaccination in childhood, antibody levels remain high in almost all cases.”
Long COVID and Advocacy for Research
Nature (UK) reports on the founding of “a non-profit organization, called the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC), to design, provide advice on and even fund basic and clinical research into long COVID and other chronic illnesses…. patient-led efforts have helped to shape research programmes on long COVID and kick off some early clinical trials of therapies that might otherwise have gone unexplored. Many patient advocates see the efforts as crucial. They also think the results are more helpful for advancing the understanding of long COVID than the current findings from programmes funded by the US$1.15-billion RECOVER initiative led by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). People with long COVID and their advocates have criticized the initiative for not always listening to the needs of people with long COVID.”
Studying the Immune System Response to COVID
Helen Branswell reports in STAT (US), “The Covid pandemic marked the first time people armed with powerful scientific tools could study how the immune system awakens to and develops defenses against a new threat, in real time, in the global population. Think about it: At the start of 2020, the immune systems of nearly 8 billion people were effectively blank slates as pertains to this new coronavirus. That immunological homogeneity produced some amazing observations. Paul Bieniasz, a virology professor at Rockefeller University, described seeing nearly identical antibodies develop in a variety of people, ‘which blew me away.’.… As for the opportunity presented by the pandemic, [immunologist Rafi] Ahmed said much of what was seen supported what was already known about the immune system, but broadened science’s understanding of how our bodies generate protection for us. ‘When you take the whole collection of the work that was done by many outstanding labs, I think it provided great insight. And insight that we had not had before.’”
GAVI’s Investment in African Vaccine Production
Devex (US) reports, “The board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance approved a new African Vaccines Manufacturing Accelerator at the end of last year, which will make up to $1 billion available over 10 years to the nascent sector…. ‘What AVMA does is give African manufacturers more financial incentives, more ability to enter into those conversations, plus helps bring the trust, obviously, that the industry will be around for longer to make those types of transactions worthwhile,’ [GAVI’s] Kinder said. AVMA’s goal is longevity — after the money runs out, African manufacturers would be in the position to continue producing for Gavi, becoming staple parts of its vaccine portfolio. This includes serving not only African countries, but potentially becoming so competitive in their production that they serve populations in other parts of the world.”
Rise in Meningococcal Cases in US
USA Today (US) reports the US CDC has issued an alert for a rise in bacterial meningococcal cases. “In the alert, the CDC explained that a variant of the Neisseria meningitidis serogroup Y has reported 140 cases in 2024 so far. Although meningitis typically affects infants and young adults, this strand is targeting adults between the ages of 30 to 60 years old. People who are at a higher risk of getting this type of meningitis are Black and African Americans or someone who has HIV.”
The Search for New Antibiotics
CIDRAP (US) reports, “Pfizer announced last week that its novel investigational combination antibiotic for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections has moved a step closer to regulatory approval in Europe.” Pfizer’s James Rusnak is quoted: "If approved, Emblaveo could offer hope to adult patients with life-threatening Gram-negative bacterial infections that currently have limited treatment options."
UPI (US) reports, “Swedish scientists have made a breakthrough in combating the global rise in microbial resistance to antibiotics with the discovery of a potent new class of drugs, according to new research published Monday. The new family of antibiotics the team at Uppsala University found works against multi-drug resistant bacteria, with synthetic trials showing they are effective against bloodstream infections in mice, the university said in a news release.
Humans May Pass More Viruses to Animals Than They Do to Us
The Independent (UK) reports, “Humans pass on more viruses to domestic and wild animals than they catch from them, a new study suggests. University College London (UCL) researchers analysed all publicly available viral genome sequences, to see where viruses have jumped from one host to infect another vertebrate species… In the new study scientists found that roughly twice as many host jumps were inferred to be from humans to other animals (known as anthroponosis) rather than the other way round. Additionally, they found even more animal-to-animal host jumps that did not involve humans.
Alaskapox is Now Borealpox
KTOO (US) reports, “The viral, rash-causing and headline-grabbing disease that was first diagnosed in Fairbanks in 2015 is getting a new name: borealpox. Known up to now as Alaskapox, the disease is caused by a virus in the orthopox family that includes smallpox and other pox viruses.” The disease has been identified in six people in the US state of Alaska, with one fatality. The article notes two reasons for changing the name. “While the discovery is new and the only cases found to date have been in Alaska, there is mounting evidence that the virus has been circulating in populations of small mammals for decades — and is expected to be in boreal regions beyond Alaska…. The second reason to change the name to borealpox is more philosophical. The WHO in 2015 took a stance against naming newly discovered human diseases after geographic areas to avoid unfair stigmas.”
|
