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☆ Millions of Girls in Africa Will Miss HPV Shots After Merck Production Problem
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nearly 1.5 million teenage girls in some of the world’s poorest countries will miss the chance to be protected from cervical cancer because the drugmaker Merck has said it will not be able to deliver millions of promised doses of the HPV vaccine this year. Merck has notified Gavi, the international organization that helps low- and middle-income countries deliver lifesaving immunizations, and UNICEF, which procures the vaccines, that it will deliver only 18.8 million of the 29.6 million doses it was contracted to deliver in 2024, Gavi said. That means that more than 10 million girls will not receive their expected HPV shots this year — and 1.5 million of them most likely will never get them because they will be too old to qualify for the vaccine in subsequent years. Patrick Ryan, a spokesman for Merck, said the company “experienced a manufacturing disruption” that required it to hold and reinspect many doses by hand. He declined to give further details about the cause of the delay.

Persons: Merck, Gavi, Patrick Ryan Organizations: Merck, UNICEF

☆ The Push for a Better Dengue Vaccine Grows More Urgent
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It forewarns of a changing landscape for the disease. The mosquitoes that spread dengue thrive in densely populated cities with weak infrastructure, and in warmer and wetter environments — the type of habitat that is expanding quickly with climate change. More than 3.5 million cases of dengue have been confirmed by governments in Latin America in the first three months of 2024, compared with 4.5 million in all of 2023. There have been more than 1,000 deaths so far this year. The Pan-American Health Organization is warning that this may be the worst year for dengue ever recorded.

Organizations: American Health Organization Locations: America, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico, Latin America

☆ Global Stockpile of Cholera Vaccine Is Gone as Outbreaks Spread
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Doses of cholera vaccine are being given to patients as fast as they are produced and the global stockpile has run completely dry, as deadly outbreaks of the disease continue to spread. This does not shock anyone in the field of emergency epidemic response because the vaccine stockpile has been precariously low for years. The surprise — the good news, which is in itself surprising since ‘cholera’ and ‘good news’ are rarely used together — is that three new vaccine makers are setting up production lines and joining the effort to replenish the stockpile. And a fourth company, the only one that currently makes the vaccine, which is given orally, has been working at a pace that experts describe as “heroic” to expand its production.

☆ War and Illness Could Kill 85,000 Gazans in 6 Months
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An escalation of the war in Gaza could lead to the deaths of 85,000 Palestinians from injuries and disease over the next six months, in the worst of three scenarios that prominent epidemiologists have modeled in an effort to understand the potential future death toll of the conflict. These fatalities would be in addition to the more than 29,000 deaths in Gaza that local authorities have attributed to the conflict since it began in October. The estimate represents “excess deaths,” above what would have been expected had there been no war. In a second scenario, assuming no change in the current level of fighting or humanitarian access, there could be an additional 58,260 deaths in the enclave over the next six months, according to the researchers, from Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. That figure could climb to 66,720 if there were outbreaks of infectious disease such as cholera, their analysis found.

Organizations: Johns Hopkins University, London School of Hygiene Locations: Gaza

☆ Brazil Has a Dengue Emergency, Portending a Health Crisis for the Americas
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-10 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Brazil is experiencing an enormous outbreak of dengue fever, the sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease, and public health experts say it is a harbinger of a coming surge in cases in the Americas, including Puerto Rico. Brazil’s Health Ministry warns that it expects more than 4.2 million cases this year, outstripping the 4.1 million cases the Pan-American Health Organization recorded for all 42 countries in the region last year. Brazil was due for a bad dengue year — numbers of cases of the virus typically rise and fall on a roughly four-year cycle — but experts say a number of factors, including El Niño and climate change, have significantly amplified the problem this year. “The record heat in the country and the above-average rainfall since last year, even before the summer, have increased the number of mosquito breeding sites in Brazil, even in regions that had few cases of the disease,” Brazil’s health minister, Nísia Trindade, said.

Persons: El, “, Nísia Trindade Organizations: Brazil’s, Ministry, American Health Organization Locations: Brazil, Americas, Puerto Rico

☆ What Happens When There Is No Food: Experts Say Severe Malnutrition Could Set in Swiftly in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ms. Power referred to the work of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, a group of U.N. agencies and relief agencies which tracks acute food shortages, and which said in March that “famine is imminent” in Gaza. Even before the war between Israel and Hamas, nearly 70 percent of Gazans were dependent on humanitarian assistance for food because the territory has been under Israeli and Egyptian blockade since 2007. Nevertheless, malnutrition was rare, Ms. Power said in congressional testimony; that has changed swiftly with the war. “In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to Oct. 7 was almost zero, and it is now one in three kids,” she said. She added: “In terms of actual severe acute malnutrition for under-5s, that rate was 16 percent in January and became 30 percent in February.

Persons: Samantha Power, Power, ”, We’re Organizations: United States Agency for International Development, Integrated, Hamas Locations: Gaza, Israel

The rural site had patients screened, tested and enrolled within a week. Testing remained a problem: only private laboratories offered the viral load tests that are necessary to track hepatitis treatment, and they charged several hundred dollars per test. Mr. Musah first began to feel ill as a high school student living in a small town in the north. After hundreds of dollars in tests, he was finally given a hepatitis diagnosis — but was told he would need a specialty hospital to help him. He traveled to Accra, where doctors said there were drugs, but he would have to pay for them.

Persons: Nartey, Musah Locations: Ghana, Accra

☆ Unvaccinated and Vulnerable: Children Drive Surge in Deadly Outbreaks
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | More About Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Large outbreaks of diseases that primarily kill children are spreading around the world, a grim legacy of disruptions to health systems during the Covid-19 pandemic that have left more than 60 million children without a single dose of standard childhood vaccines. By midway through this year, 47 countries were reporting serious measles outbreaks, compared with 16 countries in June 2020. Nigeria is currently facing the largest diphtheria outbreak in its history, with more than 17,000 suspected cases and nearly 600 deaths so far. Many of the children who missed their shots have now aged out of routine immunization programs. So-called “zero-dose children” account for nearly half of all child deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses, according to Gavi, the organization that helps fund vaccination in low- and middle-income countries.

Locations: Nigeria, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe

Those diagnosed with drug-resistant TB receive medication to take for six months — a far shorter time than previously required. For decades, the standard treatment for drug-resistant TB was to take drugs daily for a year and a half, sometimes two years. Inevitably, many patients stopped taking the medicines before they were cured and ended up with more severe disease. Countries fighting TB are concerned about what may happen if that funding ends. “If our patients had to pay, we would not have one single person taking treatment,” Ms. Yahaya said.

Persons: ” Ms, Yahaya, John Green, Johnson Organizations: Global Fund, AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, United Nations Locations: Ghana, India

☆ What to Know About Dengue Fever as Cases Spread to New Places
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | More About Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is unlikely that dengue will become a serious problem in the United States, “as long as people keeping living like they’re living now,” said Thomas W. Scott, a dengue epidemiologist and professor emeritus at University of California, Davis. Outside Puerto Rico and other territories where the disease is endemic, there are about 550 dengue cases each year in the United States, but they are imported by travelers who were infected abroad and passed the disease along to their close contacts. The case in Pasadena is a rare locally acquired case of dengue in the United States. But scientists say dengue will continue to spread to places that haven’t experienced it before. “But I think the general expectation that this is going to be a growing problem in the United States is reasonable.”

Persons: ”, Thomas W, Scott, Alex Perkins, Dr, Perkins Organizations: University of California, University of Notre Dame Locations: United States, Davis, Puerto Rico, Pasadena

☆ Unleashing a New Weapon on the Mosquito: A Mosquito
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | Eleanor Lutz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

Anggy Aldana working at the World Mosquito Program lab in Medellín, Colombia. Researchers found, after painstaking trial and error, that they could insert the bacteria into mosquito eggs using minute needles. How mosquito eggs are injected with Wolbachia A looping video showing a thin needle injecting fluid into a row of black mosquito eggs. How Wolbachia spreads among wild mosquitoes A series of three illustrations showing the outcomes of breeding between wild mosquitoes and mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia. Mosquito eggs and a tray of chilled mosquitoes at the World Mosquito Program lab.

Persons: Eleanor Lutz, Wolbachia, Scott O’Neill, —, O’Neill’s, Steven Sinkins, Marlon Victoria, ”, Victoria, “, O’Neill, It’s, Laura Harrington, They’re, won’t, ” Mr Organizations: Mosquito Program, Mosquito, Brazil —, FRANCE Croatia United, ARGENTINA CHILE Americas, CHILE Americas, University of Glasgow, —, Medellín Health, Colombian, Cornell University Locations: Medellín, Colombia, Cali, Honduras, Australia, Australian, Vietnam, Indonesia, France, Florida and Texas, Brazil, Americas, African, Asia, Europe, FRANCE Croatia United States PORTUGAL JAPAN CHINA Texas PAKISTAN Florida EGYPT INDIA MALI MEXICO PHILIPPINES SUDAN ETHIOPIA Colombia SOMALIA INDONESIA BRAZIL ANGOLA PERU NAMIBIA AUSTRALIA, AFRICA Africa, Oceania, ARGENTINA CHILE, FRANCE Croatia United States PORTUGAL JAPAN CHINA Texas Florida EGYPT, MEXICO MALI PHILIPPINES SUDAN Colombia SOMALIA INDONESIA BRAZIL ANGOLA PERU NAMIBIA AUSTRALIA ARGENTINA Africa, CHILE, Africa, United States, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wolbachia, Siloé, West Africa, Medellin

☆ Insecticides Can’t Stop These Mosquitoes. Now What?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

We know that in the lab, ATSBs appeal to many mosquito species — those that transmit malaria, those that carry viruses and those that are just annoying. But we don’t know how they will fare in the wild, where they have to compete with fruit and flowers. And we have to be sure they won’t poison bees or other pollinators.

Over the past few years, she has administered some 10,000 coronavirus vaccines in her community in eastern Ethiopia. “But I keep going because I value the work.”Ms. Yusuf is one in a legion of more than three million community health workers globally and is one of a small minority that are actually paid anything at all. Eighty-six percent of community health workers in Africa are completely unpaid. But now, spurred by frustrations that arose during the Covid pandemic and connected by digital technologies that have reached even remote areas, community health workers are organizing to fight for fair compensation. The movement stretches across developing countries and echoes the labor actions undertaken by female garment workers in many of those nations 40 years ago.

Persons: Misra Yusuf, ”, ” Ms, Yusuf Organizations: Ethiopian Locations: Ethiopia, Africa

☆ W.H.O. Ends Global Health Emergency Designation for Covid
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In Egypt, excess deaths were roughly 12 times as great as the official Covid toll; in Pakistan, the figure was eight times as high. Developing nations bore the brunt of the devastation, with nearly eight million more people than expected dying in lower-middle-income nations by the end of 2021. And Covid continues to spread: The W.H.O. recorded 2.8 million new cases globally, and more than 17,000 deaths, from April 3 to 30, the most recent numbers available. As many countries have reduced their testing for Covid, these numbers also probably represent a significant undercount.

☆ Can Africa Get Close to Vaccine Independence? Here’s What It Will Take.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The expense of putting it all in place means that vaccines made in Africa are going to cost significantly more than those from the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which is the major supplier of routine vaccines used in Africa. But the Covid vaccine rollout made clear that despite the low price of Indian-made vaccines, African leaders cannot afford to rely on them. In March 2021, when millions of Serum-made doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were bound for Africa, the Indian government imposed an export ban and rerouted those vaccines to its own population. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the continent’s existing vaccine market is worth an estimated $1.3 billion and is expected to grow to about $2.4 billion by 2030. Gavi buys half the vaccines used in Africa today.

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