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☆ COVID hit HIV detection in Europe, threatens eradication progress
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Ajose Koilparambil | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Hendrik Schmidt/Pool via Reuters/File PhotoLONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The number of people in Europe with undiagnosed HIV has risen as testing rates fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, threatening a global goal of ending the disease by 2030, a report said. This region includes Russia and Ukraine, which have the area's highest rates of HIV infection. This setback was likely because services related to HIV, including testing, were sidelined in many European countries during the two years of the pandemic, the report found. The report used modelling to predict the number of estimated infections and compared that to testing data provided by 46 of the 53 countries in the WHO's European region. An estimated one in eight people living with HIV in that region remains undiagnosed, it found.

☆ COVID pandemic led to surge in superbug infections, EU agency says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Data showed that in Europe last year, reported cases of the Acinetobacter bacteria group more than doubled compared with pre-pandemic annual numbers. Some scientists link the rise in hospital-acquired superbug infections during the pandemic to wider antibiotic prescriptions to treat COVID-19 and other bacterial infections during long hospital stays. He also said the data showed decreases in cases of some other common superbugs in European hospitals. The European report is consistent with a trend noted last year in the United States, where government data showed that U.S. deaths from drug-resistant infections jumped 15% in 2020. Experts call superbug infections, including fungal pathogens, a silent pandemic that causes more than a million deaths annually but does not draw attendant focus or funding for research.

☆ COVID variants BQ.1/BQ.1.1 make up 35% of U.S. cases
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The subvariants made up nearly 9% of total cases in the week of Oct. 15 and their proportion has been rising steadily among circulating cases since then. New variants are monitored closely by regulators and vaccine manufacturers in case they start to evade protection offered by current shots. BQ.1.1 made up nearly 19% of circulating variants and BQ.1 was estimated to make up 16.5% of circulating cases in the week of Nov. 5, the U.S. CDC said on Friday. The BA.5 subvariant, which drove up cases earlier this year, is estimated to make up about 39% of cases, compared with nearly 51% in the week ended Oct. 29. Coronavirus cases saw a small uptick for the week ended Nov. 2, data from CDC showed.

Benchmark gas futures prices for nearby months have already slumped as storage space starts to run out, while inventories continue to accumulate at unusually fast rates for the time of year. Calendar spreads from November through January have shifted into contango as inventories are expected to be plentiful in the first part of winter. Inventories are now 128 TWh (14% or 1.20 standard deviations) above the 10-year seasonal average for 2012-2021 (“Aggregated gas storage inventory”, Gas Infrastructure Europe, Oct. 26). Related columns:- Europe's gas prices retreat as storage almost full (Reuters, Oct. 13)- Mission accomplished? Europe fills gas storage ahead of schedule (Reuters, Oct. 4)John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File PhotoOct 21 (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators on Friday estimated that BQ.1 and closely related BQ.1.1 accounted for 16.6% of coronavirus variants in the country, nearly doubling from last week, while Europe expects them to become the dominant variants in a month. The two variants are descendants of Omicron's BA.5 subvariant, which is the dominant form of the coronavirus in the United States. New variants are monitored closely by regulators and vaccine manufacturers in case they start to evade protection offered by current shots. The World Health Organization this week said BQ.1.1 is circulating in at least 29 countries. The U.S. CDC said on Friday BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 last week were estimated to make up 9.4% of circulating variants.

Gas installation is pictured at the Cavern Underground Gas Storage (CUGS) Kosakowo facility, near Debogorze, Poland April, 30. "If we have a drop in temperature, we could expect an uptick in energy demand for heating," Buontempo said. But some analysts warn this alone will not compensate for the loss of Europe's main gas supplier - and a cold winter would make this worse. A cold winter in Europe could add 8 bcm to Europe's gas demand, said Energy Aspects analyst Leon Izbicki. If cold weather depletes gas storage levels this winter, Europe will need to replenish for next winter - with far less Russian gas.

☆ Europe likely entering another COVID wave, says WHO and ECDC
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Oct 12 (Reuters) - Another wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun in Europe as cases begin to tick up across the region, the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday. "We are unfortunately seeing indicators rising again in Europe, suggesting that another wave of infections has begun." Public health experts have warned that vaccine fatigue and confusion over available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake in the region. read moreMillions of people across Europe remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, the WHO and ECDC noted. They urged European countries to administer both flu and COVID-19 vaccines ahead of an expected surge in cases of seasonal influenza.

☆ Fact Check-European mortality data do not support link between higher COVID-19 vaccination rates and excess deaths
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-07 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Social media users are sharing a 45-second clip from a British news channel’s report which juxtaposes European COVID-19 vaccination rates and a single month of mortality rates to imply that countries with higher COVID-19 vaccination will have greater “excess mortality”. However, no “study” has reached the conclusion that European national vaccination rates correlate with mortality, as suggested in some social media posts. The map depicts so-called excess mortality rates across Europe in June 2022, which is the excess of deaths that month as compared to the average rate in the same month during the baseline period 2016-2019. “You really can’t draw valid conclusions on a single factor, like vaccination rates from country-level aggregated data, since countries differ in many ways other than vaccination. The clip selectively compares unrelated European datasets to suggest that high national rates of COVID-19 vaccination led to high excess mortality.

☆ Switzerland on course for mild start to winter, easing energy supply fears - paper
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The Mont Blanc mountain is seen from Finhaut, Switzerland, August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File PhotoZURICH, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Switzerland is on track for a mild start to the winter and above average temperatures could even stretch into February, weather forecasters told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, raising hopes that energy supplies will not be overstretched. A mild start to the winter would help to ensure that gas supplies and water reservoirs do not empty too quickly. "The probability of above-average values is increased according to our weather maps," Carlo Buontempo, from the ECMWF's Climate Change Service, told the newspaper. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterWriting by Paul Carrel Editing by Alexandra HudsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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