Global health and antibiotic resistance expert, Dele Ogunseitan, available to speak on the mpox outbreak
University of California, Irvine
A new international study led by Queen Mary University of London has shown mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) infections to be less severe among those who are vaccinated or had a previous infection in 2022, underlining the importance and effectiveness of vaccination.
A UCLA-led team has received $925,000 as part of a new grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct four surveillance projects tracking outbreaks of mpox--formerly known as monkeypox—across the U.S.
A 2022 outbreak of mpox (formerly monkeypox) sickened more than 30,000 people and caused 38 deaths in the United States. It highlighted the lack of an approved vaccine for those under 18 years old.
A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology have made significant progress in developing multi-valent mRNA vaccines against monkeypox virus (MPV), the agent that can cause smallpox-like disease in humans.
During last year’s mpox outbreak, the virus spread for the first time outside Africa, causing over 85,000 cases of the disease to date. Men who have sex with men account for the most infections, with a marked skew towards the young.
This month, the World Health Organization declared an end to the Mpox emergency and urged a transition to a “robust, proactive and sustainable” response to Mpox.
Patients with mpox who were treated with the antiviral drug tecovirimat had similar outcomes regardless of HIV status, find researchers at Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine.
Researcher will discuss the study which involved a sleeping aid known as suvorexant that is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for insomnia, hints at the potential of sleep medications to slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The National Institutes of Health trial to evaluate the mpox (previously known as monkeypox) vaccine JYNNEOS has now entered the next stage and is studying the immune responses to and the safety of the vaccine in adolescents. The George Washington University is one of 18 clinical trial sites across the United States that have launched this stage testing the JYNNEOS vaccine.
Below are some of the latest headlines in the new Avian Flu channel on Newswise.
Find out what special pathogens expert Erika Cheung, MSN, RN, CPN, has to say about the disease, which the WHO has declared a public health emergency of international concern. Since May 18, 2022, cases of mpox have been spreading in the United States, including California. On July 23, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the current outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
An analysis of the first large mpox outbreak in North America found that early, sustained engagement and rapid offering of preexposure vaccination to affected communities successfully controlled the spread of the outbreak. The analysis is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
"Vaccines such as JYNNEOS should be able to induce T cells that also recognize mpox and can provide protection from severe disease."
Scientists discuss what may come next as SARS-CoV-2 evolves and why COVID-19 won’t be our last pandemic
A large contact tracing investigation of a patient with monkeypox virus (MPXV) infection found no secondary cases in community or health care settings. The creation of a framework for assessing specific risk scenarios permitted ease of application by employee occupational health staff and application across the various settings and the findings have important applications for informing future infection prevention efforts, including the administering of postexposure prophylaxis, or PEP. The paper is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Monkeypox has infected more than 77,000 people in more than 100 countries worldwide, and — similar to COVID-19 — mutations have enabled the virus to grow stronger and smarter, evading antiviral drugs and vaccines in its mission to infect more people.
A UK study published by The BMJ today found evidence for “substantial” monkeypox transmission before symptoms appear or are detected (known as pre-symptomatic transmission).
Children aged 8 years or younger should be considered a group at high risk for more severe monkeypox disease, reports The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, the official journal of The European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Invitation for emergency medicine symposium
UC San Diego will be one of multiple sites assessing the safety and efficacy of tecovirimat as a potential treatment for human monkeypox. Marketed as TPOXX, tecovirimat is an antiviral currently approved for treatment of human smallpox in adults and children caused by the variola virus.
The annual influenza (flu) season — which typically lasts from October to April in the United States — is upon us. Johns Hopkins Medicine experts will be available throughout the 2022–23 season for interviews about this year’s flu virus and flu vaccine, as well as other respiratory illnesses, such as COVID-19 and monkeypox.
Inaccurate media coverage of the monkeypox outbreak has resulted in misinformation about the many ways it can be spread, resulting in stigma (shaming and biased attitudes) toward people who develop the disease. Nurses play a key role in delivering appropriate care related to monkeypox by creating safe spaces for affected individuals regardless of sexual behaviors, race and ethnicity, gender, or co-infections. These conclusions come from two papers in the November/December issue of The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC), the official journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. JANAC is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School is one of nearly 80 sites in the United States that will enroll participants in a new study to evaluate whether tecovirimat is effective in treating human monkeypox.
The current global outbreak of monkeypox is yet another warning for the adoption of a preventative, One Health, approach to minimise the risk of future emergence of known and unknown zoonotic pathogens, argue Professors Diana Bell and Andrew Cunningham.
The UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE) Center today announced its participation in STOMP (Study of Tecovirimat for Human Monkeypox Virus), or A5418, a phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of tecovirimat for the treatment of human monkeypox. STOMP, which is being led by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), has been designed to learn as much as possible in a broad population of people with monkeypox.
Monkeypox can sometimes lead to neurological complications such as encephalitis (brain inflammation), confusion or seizures, finds a new review of evidence led by a UCL researcher.
UC Davis Health has published one of the earliest studies assessing the use of tecovirimat to treat monkeypox (MPX) symptoms and skin lesions. The antiviral drug approved for smallpox treatment appeared to be safe and effective in 25 patients with monkeypox.
Monkeypox cases are on the rise in the U.S., stoking fear and confusion about the way the virus is spread, who is at risk and where to seek treatment.
Lessons learned from the public health responses to the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics should help guide the response to the current outbreak of monkeypox, National Institutes of Health experts write in an editorial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The World Health Organization and the White House have declared the growing monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that people seek medical care immediately if they develop a new, unexplained skin rash or lesion on any part of their body that they think could be monkeypox.
“For too long, we've falsely assumed that polio has been eradicated in the U.S.,” says Katherine Foss, a professor and associate director of the School of Journalism & Strategic Media at Middle Tennessee State University. However, no cases doesn’t mean the virus has been eradicated, especially with polio still existing in the world.
The latest research and expert commentary on the monkeypox outbreak.
A UC San Diego-led program that monitors wastewater for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and which has effectively predicted subsequent surges in COVID-19 cases in San Diego has been expanded to detect the presence of monkeypox.
Just when it seemed like we could sit back and breathe a sigh of relief from declining COVID-19 rates in Nevada, another virus started making headlines: Monkeypox. Local COVID cases have been on a downward trajectory for more than a month. But a wastewater surveillance program led by UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine professor and infectious disease expert Edwin Oh has started tracking monkeypox,making Southern Nevada among the first few metropolitan areas nationwide to begin searching the sewers for the emerging virus.
We rate this claim as mostly true. Among the ways monkeypox can spread is by "Touching objects, fabrics (clothing, bedding, or towels), and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection.
A study published by The BMJ today identifies important differences in monkeypox symptoms between the current outbreak and previous outbreaks in endemic regions.
The Rutgers School of Public Health will be virtually hosting leading public health scientists, clinicians, and community leaders on Friday, August 5, 2022, at 11:00 a.m., to discuss the current monkeypox outbreak in the United States.