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☆ Whooping cough cases are soaring. Can infecting people help test a better vaccine?
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-20 | by ( Brenda Goodman | Deidre Mcphillips | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Whooping cough cases climbing for decadesAs with many infectious diseases, cases of whooping cough dropped to unusually low levels during the pandemic as people limited social interactions and took other precautions to defend against Covid-19. In 2020, the US had about 6,000 cases of pertussis, and that number dropped even further in 2021 to roughly 2,000 cases. Whooping cough starts with symptoms that look a lot like a regular cold: a runny nose, sneezing, a low-grade fever and a tickly cough. That’s led to a hunt for better, more durable immunizations against whooping cough that also don’t cause as many side effects. In some ways, whooping cough is an ideal infection to test in human challenge models.

Persons: ”, Susan Hariri, Archana Chatterjee, Chatterjee, they’re, it’s, pertussis –, Hariri, Tod Merkel, Merkel, It’s, That’s, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, Melinda Wharton Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, CDC’s National Center, Food and Drug Administration, Chicago Medical School, Products Advisory, Covid, FDA’s, Vaccines Research, Regulators, CNN Health, FDA, National Center Locations: United States, Canada

☆ The Covid-19 pandemic killed off one strain of the flu, and that will change the next vaccines
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Starting this fall, however, all the flu shots distributed in the United States will probably contain only three strains, and the change is because of Covid-19. It’s not quick or easy to change how flu vaccines are manufactured, and those changes require regulatory review and approval. The committee is meeting Tuesday to discuss next steps and vote on flu vaccine recommendations for the fall. “Anytime these flu vaccines are being produced, they are – depending on which vaccines you are talking about – using live or attenuated virus, and you do have to grow it,” she said. But as the authors note, any such change would require testing and regulatory approval, and for that reason, it’s not likely we’ll see the return of four-strain flu shots any time soon.

Persons: Covid, Yamagata, It’s, We’ve, ”, Paul Offit, Offit, Jodie Guest, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, Arnold Monto, Maria Zambon, Jerry Weir, it’s Organizations: CNN, World Health Organization, Food and Drug Administration, Vaccine Education, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Biological Products Advisory, WHO, Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, Get CNN, CNN Health, New England, of Medicine, UK Health Security Agency Locations: United States, Victoria, Yamagata

An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday raised doubts about shifting toward a yearly Covid booster for most adults and children, saying too many questions about the virus still remain unanswered. The FDA convened its Vaccine and Related Biology Products Advisory Committee to discuss how the Covid vaccines may change moving forward. On Monday, the agency published briefing documents proposing annual Covid shots that target the latest variants of the virus — an approach similar to the yearly flu shot. Some committee members said they would prefer to make multiple yearly meetings on the Covid vaccines the norm. In a unanimous vote, the committee recommended using the bivalent formula in all Covid vaccines moving forward, not just for booster shots.

☆ FDA proposes simplifying the Covid vaccine schedule, making it similar to the flu shot
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Berkeley-Lovelace-Jr.Jpg | Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Food and Drug Administration advisers will meet Thursday to discuss simplifying the Covid vaccination schedule, allowing most people to get the currently available booster, regardless of how many doses they had received before that. The FDA is proposing skipping over that primary series, meaning that most unvaccinated individuals could go ahead and get the latest booster shot if they decided to get a Covid vaccine. The FDA’s proposal, experts say, would greatly simplify the Covid vaccination schedule in the United States — aligning it more closely with the annual flu shot. In another similarity to the flu shot, the FDA is considering whether the Covid vaccine should be updated at least once a year, based on what strains are in circulation. Dr. Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said simplifying the Covid vaccine schedule makes sense.

A key adviser to the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine panel is questioning whether more Covid booster shots are necessary for healthy, younger people. The FDA later backed the vaccine panel, authorizing a new formulation of the booster shots. “The people who are talking about why young people need it are missing the point,” he said, referring to the booster. Levy, the director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, continues to encourage Covid boosters for everyone who is eligible. Relatively few people in the U.S. have had updated boosters.

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