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☆ STIs are on the rise in the US. A pill taken after sex could help slow them down
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Jacqueline Howard | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Yet recent research suggests that one pill of the drug can be effective in preventing such infections among men who have sex with men if taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex. He added that any guidance from the CDC will help “fill gaps,” provide direction to clinics and offer a framework for using doxyPEP for STI prevention. “Drug resistance when taking doxyPEP is currently being studied in people using this treatment for STI prevention. “There are still many STI prevention and treatment gaps left to fill. “In STI prevention, we’ve been relying on tools that are decades, sometimes centuries old.

Persons: Dr, Jonathan Mermin, ”, doxyPEP, Stephanie Cohen, “, “ We’re, ” Cohen, ” David C, Harvey, ” Harvey, DoxyPEP, someone’s, Annie Luetkemeyer, gonorrhea, ” Luetkemeyer, Connie Celum, Kenya Medical Research Institute —, Jenell Stewart, Stewart, ” Stewart, Suneer Chander, Wisp, ” Chander, Sanjay Gupta, Mermin, Deidre McPhillips Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, CDC’s National Center, HIV, CDC, San Francisco Department of Public Health, California Department of Public Health, San Francisco Department of Public, National Coalition, STD, “, New England, of Medicine, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, UCSF, University of Washington, Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Hennepin Healthcare, University of Minnesota, PEP, Food and Drug Administration, CNN Health Locations: United States, San Francisco, Seattle, King County, Washington, Kenya, Hennepin

☆ U.S. orders antiviral drugs worth $138 million from SIGA Tech
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Companies SIGA Technologies Inc FollowJuly 27 (Reuters) - SIGA Technologies Inc (SIGA.O) on Thursday said it has won a new contract for its antiviral drug, Tpoxx, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, sending the company's shares up about 20% after the bell. The order is for delivery of about $113 million worth of oral Tpoxx treatment courses and about $25 million worth of the intravenous formulation of the treatment, SIGA said. SIGA expects to fully deliver the order of oral Tpoxx drugs in 2023 and expects to start delivering IV TPOXX in 2024. Prior to the delivery of the IV drugs, it will focus on fulfilling a prior IV order, the company said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded its use to help tackle the spread of mpox in 2022.

Persons: SIGA, Phil Gomez, Sriparna Roy, Devika Organizations: SIGA Technologies, U.S . Department of Health, Human Services, U.S . Food, Drug Administration, U.S . Centers for Disease Control, U.S . Department of Defense, World Health Organization, Thomson Locations: mpox, Bengaluru

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The White House on Friday launched an office to prepare for and respond to potential pandemics, to be led by Paul Friedrichs, a military combat surgeon and retired Air Force major general who helped lead the Pentagon's COVID response. The new Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy will also take over the duties of President Joe Biden's current COVID-19 and mpox response teams, the White House said. Friedrichs is currently special assistant to the president and senior director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the White House National Security Council. The White House had been expected to cut down its COVID response team after the U.S. government in May ended its COVID Public Health Emergency. In June, the White House announced the departure of Ashish Jha, the last of the Biden administration's rotating COVID response coordinators.

Persons: Paul Friedrichs, Joe Biden's, Biden, Friedrichs, Ashish Jha, Kanishka Singh, Alison Williams Organizations: Air Force, of Pandemic, Global Health Security, White House National Security Council, White, U.S, White House, Biden, Thomson Locations: United States, Washington

☆ With Mpox at Risk of Flaring, Health Officials Advise, ‘Get Vaccinated’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Sharon Otterman | Liam Stack | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Late last year, with cases at a trickle, New York City wound down its mpox emergency response. Health officials stopped posting updates about cases. Since peaking in the city late last July at almost 100 cases a day, the disease has continued to circulate at much lower levels. Health officials stopped posting case information on the city’s website at the end of last year. The health department said there had been at least 39 mpox cases in New York so far this year, including 20 in January and two in the past month.

☆ CDC urges mpox vaccination among people at high risk to prevent summer surge
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The patients in the Chicago cluster all have mild symptoms, according Demetre Daskalakis, deputy head of the White house mpox task force. Many of the people who caught mpox in the Chicago cluster were fully vaccinated against the virus, raising questions about whether immunity from the shots might wane over time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday urged gay men and other individuals at high risk from mpox to get fully vaccinated to prevent a summer resurgence of the virus. Though the estimates of mpox vaccine effectiveness vary, Daskalakis said the message is clear: "One dose is good, two doses are better." It's also possible that the vaccine the patients in the Chicago cluster received were compromised in some way or weren't administered properly, he said.

☆ Opinion | If the Pandemic Is No Longer a Public Health Emergency, Then What Is It?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( David Quammen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Is malaria an emergency? Is tuberculosis of international concern? I’m neither a public health expert nor a scientist, so I offer a citizen’s opinion: Yes, it’s time to cease calling Covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern. Therefore, Covid is still certainly a public health situation of international concern. We will need to keep improving laboratory techniques and manufacturing capacity for potentially ever-revised Covid vaccines.

☆ Mpox outbreak was wake-up call for smallpox preparation, vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin said the rapid spread of mpox last year was a wake-up call for the company, which is based in Denmark. Bavarian Nordic's Jynneos vaccine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to protect against both pathogens. Bavarian Nordic will finish delivering an order of 5 million Jynneos doses for the U.S government in the first half of this year. Bavarian Nordic estimates that the potential demand for the mpox vaccine could reach tens of millions of doses. "If you can reengineer a related virus like horsepox, you can engineer variola, which is the smallpox virus that infects humans," he said.

☆ Opinion | Finding the Origin of a Pandemic Is Difficult. Preventing One Shouldn’t Be.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( W. Ian Lipkin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Similarly, in 2008 my team investigated a hemorrhagic fever outbreak with an 80‌‌ percent case fatality rate in Zambia and South Africa. Finding the origin of a viral outbreak can be incredibly difficult, even with full government cooperation and the best available technologies. It’s important to try, because the insights into how a virus emerged may be useful in reducing the risk of future outbreaks. We cannot wait for answers that may never come before doing what must be done to prevent the next pandemic. And yet very little has been done in the wake of this pandemic to better either source of risk.

☆ How Gay Men Saved Us From Monkeypox - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Ina Park | Dan Savage | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

We know gay sex has been unfairly blamed for everything from natural disasters to the fall of Rome. But in their efforts to avoid stigmatizing the community, health authorities and the media failed to effectively warn gay and bi men. Ignorant of the threat as the virus spread, gay and bi men couldn’t take steps to protect themselves and their partners. Gay party promoters canceled long-planned events and individual gay men temporarily deleted hookup apps from their phones and reduced their sexual contacts. They acknowledged the realities of gay sexuality and its breadth of expression, using the actual language gay men use when discussing sex with each other.

☆ CDC advisors recommend mpox vaccine for at-risk adults in future outbreaks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's independent advisors on Wednesday unanimously recommended administering the two-dose Jynneos vaccine to adults at risk of mpox in the event of future outbreaks, following last year's unprecedented epidemic. "It's important to state that an mpox outbreak will be determined by public health authorities, and a single case may be considered an mpox outbreak at the discretion of the public health authority," said Dr. Pablo Sanchez, head of the CDC committee's mpox workgroup. "Local health departments, state health departments, federal can all make that determination of what is considered an outbreak," Rao said. The CDC advisors will meet again in June to discuss using the Jynneos vaccine for kids at risk of mpox in future outbreaks. The U.S. is currently offering the vaccine to adults and adolescents who are at risk in the current epidemic.

☆ WHO maintains public health emergency alert for mpox
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 15 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday said mpox remained a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), its highest level of alert, citing continued transmission in some countries. Mpox - which spreads via close contact and tends to cause flu-like symptoms and pus-filled skin lesions - was declared a global health emergency by the WHO in July 2022. The committee said there was continued sustained illness in some countries and likely under-reported detection and confirmed cases in others. "The WHO Director-General ... concurs with this advice that the event continues to constitute a PHEIC," it said. (This story has been corrected to fix the attribution to sources close to meeting in paragraph 3)Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; editing by John StonestreetOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bavarian Nordic to buy travel vaccine portfolio for up to $380 mln
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 15 (Reuters) - Danish pharmaceuticals company Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO) has agreed to buy a portfolio of travel vaccines from Emergent BioSolutions Inc (EBS.N) for up to $380 million, it said on Wednesday after delivering an upbeat outlook for 2023. The company said it would acquire a typhoid fever vaccine, one against cholera and a Chikungunya virus treatment that is in Phase III trials. Bavarian Nordics makes the only approved mpox vaccine and started receiving massive orders last year as the virus became a global issue. The company expects 2023 revenue of about 6 billion Danish crowns ($863 million) against the 3.15 billion crowns in preliminary 2022 results, with 4.4 billion crowns coming from mpox and smallpox vaccined contracts alone. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are expected to reach 2.2 billion crowns this year, up from 329 million crowns in the preliminary results for 2022.

☆ CDC is talking to airlines about wastewater testing in planes. New reports support that strategy.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Aria-Bendix-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Aria Bendix | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

The U.S. has been monitoring for the coronavirus in wastewater since the CDC launched its National Wastewater Surveillance System in September 2020. But that testing mainly involves wastewater from households or buildings, not samples from airports or planes. Previous Covid-19 wastewater surveillance has shown to be a valuable tool, and airplane wastewater surveillance could potentially be an option," CDC press officer Scott Pauley told NBC News. Politico first reported that the agency is considering airplane wastewater testing. As of October, more than 1,250 sites were conducting wastewater testing across the U.S.

☆ Mpox has faded in the U.S. Who deserves the credit?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

Today, reports of new cases are down to a trickle in the U.S. Health officials are shutting down emergency mobilizations. “It’s really impressive how that peak has come down to very, very low levels.”So who deserves the credit? Mpox cases began emerging in Europe and the U.S. in May, mostly among men who have sex with men. In early August, U.S. health officials decided to stretch the limited supply by giving people just one-fifth the usual dose. “The monkeypox virus essentially loses steam after a couple of rounds in humans,” Morse said.

☆ Here are 22 of the top LGBTQ news stories of 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Jo Yurcaba | Jo Yurcaba Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +12 min

Here are 22 of our top LGBTQ news stories of the year. Ron DeSantis signed the controversial Parental Rights in Education law — or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — on March 28. 'It’s already having an impact': LGBTQ people fear abortion rights reversalA supporter of gay marriage waves a flag in front of the Supreme Court on June 25, 2015. Nicola Goode / Prime VideoAmazon’s “A League of Their Own” series, which debuted Aug. 12 and was inspired by the 1992 cult classic by director Penny Marshall, brought much-needed representation to the screen for lesbians and other queer women, who celebrated how “gay, gay, gay” it was. Biden signs same-sex marriage bill at White House ceremonyPresident Joe Biden signs the Respect for Marriage Act on the South Lawn of the White House on Dec. 13.

☆ United States to end mpox emergency declaration
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Mpox is expected to no longer be considered a public health emergency in the United States from Feb. 1, 2023, the U.S. health department said on Friday. The months-long declaration was meant to tackle the largest-ever outbreak of cases in the country. The WHO label, a "public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)", is designed to trigger a coordinated international response and could unlock funding to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments. The disease, which is endemic in parts of Africa, began spreading in Europe earlier this year before moving to the United States. More than 29,000 cases have been reported in the United States in the outbreak this year, including two deaths, according to government data.

☆ Biden administration plans to let mpox emergency declaration end in January
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Katherine Dillinger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The US Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that it does not plan to renew the public health emergency declaration for mpox. “Given the low number of cases today, HHS does not expect that it needs to renew the emergency declaration when it ends on January 31, 2023,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Friday. President Joe Biden named Bob Fenton, a regional Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC, as coordinators of the White House’s mpox response in August. Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team. Fenton’s and Daskalakis’ appointments are not tied to the emergency declaration and will continue for now, as will data collection and some other flexibilities provided by the emergency declaration.

☆ Biden administration will end monkeypox public health emergency
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

People line up to get a monkeypox vaccination at a new walk-up monkeypox vaccination site at Barnsdall Art Park on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022 in Hollywood, CA. The Biden administration will end the public health emergency declared in response to the monkeypox outbreak, as new infections have declined dramatically and vaccination rates have increased. Becerra declared an emergency in August in an effort to accelerate a vaccination and education campaign as the virus was spreading swiftly in the gay community. But infections have slowed dramatically since August, when new cases peaked at 638 per day on average. U.S. health officials have said the outbreak has slowed because vaccinations have increased dramatically, and people have changed their behavior in response to education campaigns about how to avoid infection.

☆ CDC says 2 more places will test sewage for polio
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

Philadelphia and Oakland County, Michigan, are joining the small list of U.S. localities that are looking for signs of polio infections in sewage, U.S. health officials said Wednesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the communities will test for polio in sewage for at least four months. CDC officials say they have been talking with other communities about also starting polio wastewater testing. They are focused on cities and counties with low polio vaccination coverage and those in which travelers had visited the New York communities where polio was found. This year, commercial laboratories began testing wastewater for mpox, previously known as monkeypox.

☆ W.H.O. renames monkeypox as mpox, citing racism concerns
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

The World Health Organization has renamed monkeypox as mpox, citing concerns the original name of the decades-old animal disease could be construed as discriminatory and racist. The U.N. health agency said in a statement Monday that mpox was its new preferred name for monkeypox, saying that both monkeypox and mpox would be used for the next year while the old name is phased out. WHO said it was concerned by the “racist and stigmatizing language” that arose after monkeypox spread to more than 100 countries. Scientists believe monkeypox triggered outbreaks in Western countries after spreading via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain. Mpox was first named monkeypox in 1958 when research monkeys in Denmark were observed to have a “pox-like” disease, although they are not thought to be the disease’s animal reservoir.

☆ World Health Organization to rename monkeypox as mpox
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Karen Gilchrist | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The name mpox, otherwise known as Mpox, was chosen after the WHO launched a public consultation process earlier this year. The World Health Organization said Monday that it would begin referring to monkeypox as mpox in an effort to reduce stigma around the name of the virus. Both names will be used simultaneously for a year while moneypox is phased out, the global health organization said in a post on its website, encouraging others to follow the new naming convention. The WHO said it hoped the chosen name mpox would "minimize any ongoing negative impact of the current name." The name mpox was submitted by men's health organization Rezo.

☆ WHO renames monkeypox as ‘mpox’
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jamie Gumbrecht | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The World Health Organization announced Monday that “mpox” is now the preferred name for monkeypox. “Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while ‘monkeypox’ is phased out,” the organization said. In August, WHO encouraged people to propose new names for monkeypox by submitting suggestions to it website. The preferred term mpox can be used in other languages,” WHO said in its statement. So far, more than 81,000 monkeypox cases in 110 cases have been reported to WHO in the recent outbreak.

☆ Mpox in the United States Fast Facts
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-05 | by ( Cnn Editorial Research | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Here’s a look at mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in the United States. 2003 - An outbreak in the United States is linked to infected pet prairie dogs imported from Ghana and results in more than 80 cases. June 22, 2022 - The CDC announces a partnership with five commercial laboratories to ramp up testing capacity in the United States. June 23, 2022 - New York City launches the first mpox vaccination clinic in the United States. July 22, 2022 - Two American children contract mpox – a first in the United States.

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