Bermudas Health Minister Kim Wilson, is appealing to Bermudians to continue taking precautions against the coronavirus (COVID-19) after health authorities recorded six deaths so far this year.
She said the virus has not gone away, we will probably always have cases in our community, and I urge everyone to continue taking precautions to avoid catching and spreading COVID-19.
The Ministry of Health confirmed that there have been 303 confirmed cases up to June 8 and that the six deaths have been classed as COVID-19-related, because fatalities had not yet undergone full certification, which includes the coding of death certificates by the Registry-General, followed by validation by the epidemiology and surveillance unit as well as the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency.
Nonetheless, these deaths are reported as meeting the surveillance case definition, the ministry said in a statement, adding that it monitors trends based on reports from select healthcare providers and facilities, including the Bermuda Hospitals Board, and by tracking outbreaks in schools, long-term care facilities, and other identified locations.
While the ministry did not give specific figures, the health minister said residents should maintain good hygiene, social distancing, and respiratory etiquette.
Anyone with suspected symptoms of COVID-19 has been advised to take a home antigen test or consult with a healthcare provider. Positive cases should isolate for at least five days and close contacts should monitor their health and test accordingly.
A Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) spokeswoman said a long-term care unit at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and a unit at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute were under quarantine, with visits on hold, after an unspecified number of patients tested positive for the illness.
Patients in these areas are being monitored and receiving appropriate care as needed. Some of our 1,800 staff members are also on leave due to COVID infections, the spokeswoman said, with the BHB adding we may feel like COVID is behind us, but it is important to remember that its still circulating in the community.
Respiratory infections like Covid and flu can be particularly dangerous for our vulnerable patients and residents, whose immune systems may already be compromised. Members of the public should postpone visiting their loved ones in hospital if they dont feel well.
Even if visitors feel well, we recommend they wear masks when in close contact with patients in case they are infectious but do not have symptoms. Our policy is that staff wear masks for all patient interactions to minimise any chance of infection between staff and patients, the spokeswoman added.
The former New York governor's deposition took place behind closed doors.
June 11, 2024, 5:09 PM ET
5 min read
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared Tuesday before a congressional subcommittee to speak about his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic, including its highly-scrutinized handling of nursing homes.
The transcribed interview took place behind closed doors with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The GOP-led panel issued a subpoena in March for Cuomo, a Democrat, to sit for a deposition.
The former governor briefly addressed reporters as he arrived at the O'Neill House Office Building on Tuesday morning.
"Today is is an opportunity to actually get the truth and the facts out, and I welcome that opportunity," he told reporters.
He went on to accuse Republicans of weaponizing the justice system to target Democrats over the pandemic, and said he was "proud" of how New York handled the health crisis.
Cuomo's appearance comes on the heels of the subcommittee's hearing last week with Dr. Anthony Fauci as Republicans continue to try to put the country's response to COVID-19 in the spotlight amid a contentious 2024 presidential election cycle.
Fauci defended against Republican criticisms of his leadership and pushed back on their assertions about the origins of the virus.
The questioning of Cuomo is expected to largely focus on his administration's instruction to nursing homes in the early days of the pandemic to accept residents recovering from the virus after they were discharged from hospitals.
The directive was issued in March 2020 and rescinded weeks later. Cuomo has long defended the policy as having been based on federal guidance, but the move faced criticism that it led to increased deaths in nursing homes.
Cuomo's administration was also pilloried for having allegedly misreported the overall number of COVID-related deaths at New York nursing homes. At first, officials counted only residents who had died in such facilities, excluding residents who died in hospitals.
Cuomo attributed the discrepancy to a delay as his office prioritized federal requests for data over state requests. Though one of his top aides at the time admitted his office withheld certain numbers due to concerns it would be used against them by the Trump administration.
Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said Cuomo's testimony is "crucial to uncover the circumstances that led to his misguided policies and for ensuring that fatal mistakes never happen again."
"It appears that politics, not medicine, was responsible for these decisions," Wenstrup said in a in a statement ahead of Tuesday's testimony. "Former Governor Cuomo owes answers to the 15,000 families who lost loved ones in New York nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo's spokesperson, pushed back on the chairman's characterizations in a statement to ABC News.
"The Department of Justice has looked at this issue three times, as have the Manhattan District Attorney, the Attorney General and the New York State Assembly, all determining that the actual facts and evidence did not support any claim of wrongdoing, and no MAGA farce of a congressional hearing is going to change that," Azzopardi said in a statement.
"Despite the politicization of people's real pain, the facts remain: DOH medical professionals issued its March 25th admissions advisory based on federal CDC and CMS guidance -- just as 11 other states -- Democrat and Republican -- did," Azzopardi added.
Cuomo, who gained national attention for his often combative performances at multiple COVD-related briefings, was once heralded for his political leadership during COVID but became a pariah in his own party both over the nursing home controversy and later sexual harassment allegations that forced his resignation.
If youve had COVID-19, you may want to have your eyes checked. SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease, can infect the inside of your eyes, according to research published in April in the journal PLOS Pathogens.This holds true even if the virus didnt enter your body through the surface of your eyes.
Pawan Kumar Singh, PhD, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, led a team of researchers who found that inhaled viruses can reach highly protected organs such as the eyes, potentially causing long-term damage. SARS-CoV-2 does so by breaching the blood-retinal barrier, layers of cells that shield the retina, the part of your eye that senses light, from microbial pathogens.
Earlier, researchers were primarily focused on the ocular surface exposure of the virus, Singh said in a news release. However, our findings reveal that SARS-CoV-2 not only reaches the eye during systemic infection but induces a hyperinflammatory response in the retina and causes cell death in the blood-retinal barrier. The longer viral remnants remain in the eye, the risk of damage to the retina and visual function increases.
Using a humanized mice model, Singh and his team showed that the prolonged presence of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins can cause problems such as:
For those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, we recommend you ask your ophthalmologist to check for signs of pathological changes to the retina, Singh said. Even those who were asymptomatic could suffer from damage in the eyes over time because of COVID-19-associated complications.
The following symptoms may indicate retinal disease, according to the National Eye Institute:
If you dont have an ophthalmologist, your primary care physician can refer you to one and help determine the best course of treatment.
Though the blood-retinal barrier of people with compromised immune systems is known to be susceptible to bacteria and viruses, MU claims Singhs study is the first to suggest SARS-CoV-2 can infect that of otherwise healthy people. That said, immunocompromised people and those with diabetes or high blood pressure may face more severe COVID-related eye health issues if left untreated.
Now that we know the risk of COVID-19 to the retina, our goal is to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how this virus breaches the blood-retinal barrier and associated pathological consequences in hopes of informing development of therapies to prevent and treat COVID-19-induced eye complications before a patients vision is compromised, Singh said.
For more on COVID-19:
By Amy Maxmen and Arthur Allen June 11, 2024
Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, theres another suspect, bird flu but theres no way for most doctors to know.
If the government doesnt prepare to ramp up H5N1 bird flu testing, he and other researchers warn, the United States could be caught off guard again by a pandemic.
Were making the same mistakes today that we made with covid, Deborah Birx, who served as former President Donald Trumps coronavirus response coordinator, said June 4 on CNN.
To become a pandemic, the H5N1 bird flu virus would need to spread from person to person. The best way to keep tabs on that possibility is by testing people.
Scientifically speaking, many diagnostic laboratories could detect the virus. However, red tape, billing issues, and minimal investment are barriers to quickly ramping up widespread availability of testing. At the moment, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized only the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions bird flu test, which is used only for people who work closely with livestock.
State and federal authorities have detected bird flu in dairy cattle in 12 states. Three people who work on separate dairy farms tested positive, and it is presumed they caught the virus from cows. Yet researchers agree that number is an undercount given the CDC has tested only about 40 people for the disease.
Its important to know if this is contained on farms, but we have no information because we arent looking, said Helen Chu, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington in Seattle who alerted the country to covids spread in 2020 by testing people more broadly.
Reports of untested sick farmworkers as well as a maternity worker who had flu symptoms in the areas with H5N1 outbreaks among cattle in Texas suggest the numbers are higher. And the mild symptoms of those who tested positive a cough and eye inflammation, without a fever are such that infected people might not bother seeking medical care and, therefore, wouldnt be tested.
The CDC has asked farmworkers with flu symptoms to get tested, but researchers are concerned about a lack of outreach and incentives to encourage testing among people with limited job security and access to health care. Further, by testing only on dairy farms, the agency likely would miss evidence of wider spread.
Its hard to not compare this to covid, where early on we only tested people who had traveled, said Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of the clinical virology laboratory at Stanford University. That left us open to not immediately recognizing that it was transmitting among the community.
In the early months of covid, the rollout of testing in the United States was catastrophically slow. Although the World Health Organization had validated a test and other groups had developed their own using basic molecular biology techniques, the CDC at first insisted on creating and relying on its own test. Adding to delays, the first version it shipped to state health labs didnt work.
The FDA lagged, too. It didnt authorize tests from diagnostic laboratories outside of the CDC until late February 2020.
On Feb. 27, 2020, Chus research lab detected covid in a teenager who didnt meet the CDCs narrow testing criteria. This case sounded an alarm that covid had spread below the radar. Scaling up to meet demand took time: Months passed before anyone who needed a covid test could get one.
Chu notes this isnt 2020 not by a long shot. Hospitals arent overflowing with bird flu patients. Also, the country has the tools to do much better this time around, she said, if theres political will.
For starters, tests that detect the broad category of influenzas that H5N1 belongs to, called influenza A, are FDA-approved and ubiquitous. These are routinely run in the flu season, from November to February. An unusual number of positives from these garden-variety flu tests this spring and summer could alert researchers that something is awry.
Doctors, however, are unlikely to request influenza A tests for patients with respiratory symptoms outside of flu season, in part because health insurers may not cover them except in limited circumstances, said Alex Greninger, assistant director of the clinical virology laboratory at the University of Washington.
Thats a solvable problem, he added. At the peak of the covid pandemic, the government overcame billing issues by mandating that insurance companies cover tests, and set a lucrative price to make it worthwhile for manufacturers. You ran into a testing booth on every other block in Manhattan because companies got $100 every time they stuck a swab in someones nose, Greninger said.
Another obstacle is that the FDA has yet to allow companies to run their influenza A tests using eye swabs, although the CDC and public health labs are permitted to do so. Notably, the bird flu virus was detected only in an eye swab from one farmworker infected this year and not in samples drawn from the nose or throat.
Overcoming such barriers is essential, Chu said, to ramp up influenza A testing in regions with livestock. The biggest bang for the buck is making sure that these tests are routine at clinics that serve farmworker communities, she said, and suggested pop-up testing at state fairs, too.
In the meantime, novel tests that detect the H5N1 virus, specifically, could be brought up to speed. The CDCs current test isnt very sensitive or simple to use, researchers said.
Stanford, the University of Washington, the Mayo Clinic, and other diagnostic laboratories that serve hospital systems have developed alternatives to detecting the virus circulating now. However, their reach is limited, and researchers stress a need to jump-start additional capacity for testing before a crisis is underway.
How can we make sure that if this becomes a public health emergency we arent stuck in the early days of covid, where things couldnt move quickly? Pinsky said.
A recent rule that gives the FDA more oversight of lab-developed tests may bog down authorization. In a statement to KFF Health News, the FDA said that, for now, it may allow tests to proceed without a full approval process. The CDC did not respond to requests for comment.
But the American Clinical Laboratory Association has asked the FDA and the CDC for clarity on the new rule. Its slowing things down because its adding to the confusion about what is allowable, said Susan Van Meter, president of the diagnostic laboratory trade group.
Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics, and other major testing companies are in the best position to manage a surge in testing demand because they can process hundreds per day, rather than dozens. But that would require adapting testing processes for their specialized equipment, a process that consumes time and money, said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic.
Theres only been a handful of H5N1 cases in humans the last few years, he said, so its hard for them to invest millions when we dont know the future.
The government could provide funding to underwrite its research, or commit to buying tests in bulk, much as Operation Warp Speed did to advance covid vaccine development.
If we need to move to scale this, there would need to be an infusion of money, said Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious disease programs at the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Like an insurance policy, the upfront expense would be slight compared with the economic blow of another pandemic.
Other means of tracking the H5N1 virus are critical, too. Detecting antibodies against the bird flu in farmworkers would help reveal whether more people have been infected and recovered. And analyzing wastewater for the virus could indicate an uptick in infections in people, birds, or cattle.
As with all pandemic preparedness efforts, the difficulty lies in stressing the need to act before a crisis strikes, Greninger said.
We should absolutely get prepared, he said, but until the government insures some of the risk here, its hard to make a move in that direction.
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Tackling an avian influenza virus strain with pandemic potential should be straightforward if lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic are heeded.
In January 2020, when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 a public health emergency of international concern, there was no vaccine, no antiviral therapeutic, and a general lack of clarity of the natural viral reservoir, how it spread, who was most at risk of severe disease, and the case-fatality rate.
Fast-forwarding to today, the world may again be on the cusp of a fresh pandemic, as the avian influenza virus H5N1 strain (clade 2.3.4.4b) that has been decimating US poultry flocks has now jumped to dairy cattle and, of greatest concern, to humans.
But the collective understanding of the threat is very different this time around, and that knowledge, coupled with effective communication of accessible public health interventions, can compensate for a near-term shortage of vaccines and targeted therapeutics.
Avian influenza virus has been known to circulate in birds since the late 1800s. The virus belongs to the influenza A virus (IAV) group, with highly pathogenic forms capable of causing mass death in bird populations. It was not until 1997 that the first human case of H5N1 avian influenza was reported in Hong Kong, in an outbreak that led to 18 human infections, 6 deaths, and the culling of millions of domestic birds to stem further virus spread1.
The high death rate in humans was a global wake-up call. National influenza pandemic plans were created, vaccines were developed, approved and stockpiled, surveillance was ramped up, and poultry were vaccinated. But a vaccine against avian influenza for humans was never rolled out to the public.
With 144 possible avian influenza virus subtypes, and no effective universal influenza vaccine design thus far, a vaccine against avian influenza for use in humans might seem unattainable. But according to the US Centers for Disease Control, only six avian hemagglutinin subtypes have infected humans and resulted in respiratory illness, and of those, H5N1 and H7N9 viruses have caused the most human cases, which narrows the list of potential vaccine candidates. Despite sporadic human cases of infection, human-to-human spread of avian influenza has thus far been infrequent and not sustained. However, influenza virus is highly mutable and could give rise to a highly human-transmissible and virulent avian influenza virus variant, which would require a pandemic response.
Whether the H5N1 virus currently infecting both poultry and dairy cattle in the United States poses a greater risk of triggering a human pandemic than previous strains capable of zoonotic infection is unknown. The virus has been circulating in the United States since at least January 2022, when it was first detected in wild birds and subsequently in poultry facilities. H5N1 infections in humans and other mammals have been reported worldwide, associated with exposure to birds, which highlights the potential for broader zoonotic transmission of this virus. But the detection of H5N1 in cows, a species not previously thought to be susceptible to IAV, in the United States in March 2024, and the subsequent reports of at the time of this writing three cases of cow-to-human transmission in dairy farm employees have raised concerns about the threat potential of this IAV if it adapts to become both endemic and highly pathogenic in mammals.
The US Department of Agriculture has taken steps to aid affected dairy producers navigate the outbreak, including the release of funds to producers who supply personal protective equipment to their employees, for the development of biosecurity plans, and for veterinarian and testing costs. Other countries, such as Mexico and France, have been vaccinating their poultry flocks against H5N1. Millions of domestic fowl worldwide have been culled in the current outbreak.
Vaccination of poultry may help quell localized outbreaks, but the rapid evolution of IAV and its continual reintroduction by wild birds makes this approach a short-term fix in the absence of a universal vaccine. And although culling of poultry has been economically viable, thanks to government subsidies and the rapid growth of birds, it is an infeasible solution for cattle. Instead, infrastructural changes need to be adopted to detect and limit spread of avian influenza virus, particularly in the event that the virus becomes more highly transmissible or virulent.
The lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic are abundant. (1) Surveillance is essential. However, the financial considerations of dairy producers complicate the picture, as they are not incentivized to report a sick animal. Eliminating that barrier is critical to reducing further animal-to-animal spread and reducing the potential for animal-to-human transmission. (2) Protecting agricultural and food industry workers is essential. Just as these employee groups suffered disproportionately severe outcomes from COVID-19 due to a lack of sufficient personal protective equipment, testing, job retention and compensation for quarantining, and affordable medical care, so too must they be at the forefront of addressing the avian influenza outbreak, as populations at high risk of exposure and vulnerable to mistreatment. (3) Inexpensive, noninvasive, rapid tests are essential, both for animals and humans, to facilitate the immediate enactment of precautionary measures. (4) Masks are a critical resource that must be depoliticized. In the absence of a widely available vaccine, masking will mitigate spread of a pandemic influenza virus strain. (5) Communication is essential. Data sharing with local, national and international stakeholders will facilitate an effective response. Engaging, rather than alienating, the public on the development of the outbreak, on both the knowns and unknowns, and of ongoing efforts to mitigate virus spread, is necessary to restore confidence in the public agencies tasked with responding to potential pandemics.
Although the evolution of circulating H5N1 may be unpredictable, the response should not be.
FILE: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a coronavirus briefing at Northwell Feinstein Institute For Medical Research in Manhasset, New York on May 6, 2020. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be appearing in front of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The subcommittee will be conducting a closed, transcribed interview with Cuomo about his issuance of the COVID-19 nursing home guidance. This comes after over 6,400 nursing facility residents died from COVID-related complications.
Ohio Representative Brad Wenstrup is the chairman of the subcommittee. He accused the former governor of putting elderly residents at risk and trying to cover up the death rate.
His testimony is crucial to uncover the circumstances that led to his misguided policies and for ensuring that fatal mistakes never happen again, Rep. Wenstrup said in a statement. It is well past time for Cuomo to stop dodging accountability to Congress and start answering honestly to the American people.
Cuomo has faced backlash regarding this data. His top aide said officials froze over concerns the information would be used against them. In August 2021, Cuomo announced his resignation from the governors office.
The former governor posted a video statement to YouTube, which aims to cut through politics and share the facts about the COVID-19 pandemic with New Yorkers. You can watch the full video by clicking here.
WASHINGTON Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is scheduled to testify Tuesdaybefore a congressional panel investigating the COVID-19 pandemic, with his administrations handling of nursing home deaths in New York expected to be a main focus for investigators.
Cuomo's testimony will occur behind closed doors, with attorneys for the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic expected to question him about a March 2020 state directive that blocked nursing homes from rejecting patients with COVID-19.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo implemented nursing home policies that had deadly consequences for New Yorks most vulnerable population, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the subcommittee, saidin a statement.
Cuomo asserted he was following federal guidelines. But many families of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19 while at senior living facilities have blamed Cuomo's directive forincreasing the spread of the virus, as many facilities were unable to properly isolate virus-positive patients.
Asked about Cuomos expectations for the subcommittee interview, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi in a statement to Newsday described the panels investigation as a craven partisan farce.
Azzopardi continued: For years they've been shamelessly weaponizing peoples pain.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), the only New Yorker on the pandemic subcommittee, defended the panels work, saying were just looking for the facts, and wherever they lead, they lead.
A lot of this is making sure that we get the answers for those families, we get accountability for those families, but that we also ensure it never happens again, and we learn from this experience, Malliotakis said in an interview. If we don't know how we got to certain decisions that were made during COVID, how do we learn from this horrific experience, and improve the response for a future pandemic?
Malliotakis said she expects a transcript of Cuomos interview to be made public in the future. Malliotakis also said she expects Cuomo to be called to testify at a public hearing, although she did not have a time frame. The subcommittee expects to release a report with its findings eventually, Malliotakis said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said in a 2021 report that the state Department of Health underreported the number of nursing home COVID-19 deaths by about 50% by omitting deaths of nursing home residents who were transferred to hospitals. An audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in 2022found the health department underreported 4,100 deaths between April 2020 and February 2021.
The Health Department issued updated fatality figures in February 2021, after James' report, reporting 13,197 confirmed and presumed COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents across New York from March 1, 2020 to Feb.5, 2021.
Nancy Gertler, of Great Neck, whose 98-year-old mother, Florence, was among the COVID-19 fatalities at the Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation in April 2020, told Newsday she still questions what led to the March directive and hopes the panels work leads to recommendations that prevent this from happening again.
Gertler continued: I dont understand why [Cuomo] would allow nursing homes with the most fragile patients why he would force them to admit people with COVID. I think its horrifying. My mother was one of the first people to die in the nursing home that they actually said her death was from COVID-19.
Cuomos former top aide, Melissa DeRosa, is scheduled to be interviewed by subcommittee investigators this month. Other Cuomo administration officials who have testified include former State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker and Jim Malatras, the former Chancellor of the State University of New York, who served as a Cuomo senior adviser, Wenstrup said.
The panel heard testimony last week from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a combative public hearingthat underscored the partisan divide over the initial federal response to the pandemic. Fauci drew praise fromDemocrats for his work advising the Trump White House in the earliest days of the pandemic, but Republicans questioned whether Fauci sought to cover up competing theories about the origin of the virus.
A spokeswoman for the Democrats on the committeesaid in a statement to Newsday: The Select Subcommittee Democrats take seriously any effort to evade transparency and mislead the public, and remain committed to the forward-looking work of fortifying infection control and prevention to protect Americas nursing homeresidents.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
Monkeypox (Mpox) is an infection transmitted by skin-to-skin contact and causes fever and painful skin blisters. It is in the Orthopoxvirus genus of viruses, which includes smallpox, so those vaccinated against it have cross-protection, smallpox vaccines also work for monkeypox.
It is usually self-resolving but has been linked to deaths in immunocompromised individuals and an antiviral drug like tecovirimat stops the spread of infection by interfering with a protein found on the surface of Orthopoxviruses. Those only work if people get vaccinated or treated. Those who engage in risky behavior and use phone apps should use extra caution, the authors of a recent paper note.
In 2022 there were over 30,000 cases reported, only among men who have sex with men in the U.S. but with only three cases in six months in the CDC's EMERGEncy ID NET, which since 1995has included 13 dispersed U.S. emergency departments, the outbreak is over.
Smallpox vaccines are effective against monkeypox. Cristian Storto/Alamy Stock Photo
That is thanks to awareness, which leads to better judgment, and vaccination. The authors of a new paper remain concerned despite the low numbers because of low vaccination uptake among gay and bisexual men who have sex with men(GBMSM), though they were almost exclusively the population afflicted and now are not, so vaccine efforts have been a success.
There were no reported cases in women or children.
The sample population in the new paper were196 enrolled persons, just under half female, and 20 percent were children. Mpox was only diagnosed in three (1.5%) individuals, each of whom identified as GBMSM and reported being HIV-negative, not being vaccinated against mpox, and having engaged in sex with one or more partners met on smartphone dating apps.
This surveillance effort was unique in that it was based on testing all patients with an mpox-compatible rash regardless of presumed epidemiological risk, said Dr. David Talan, the studys co-lead author and professor of emergency medicine/infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. This allowed us to investigate whether infection occurred in non-GBMSM individuals, groups who previously may not have been suspected and tested for mpox.
Of concern is also a new mpox strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that appears to be more transmissible and virulent.
As a co-leader of the team at the National Institutes of Health that developed technologies powering a number of Covid-19 vaccines, I often speak publicly about vaccine science, even though I no longer work for the government. After my talks, people often approach me, almost always thanking me for my work. There is no denying the millions of lives that Covid-19 vaccines saved. sometimes, though, they relate stories of vaccine injuries.
I still hold on to the story of one person who approached me in a crowded auditorium following one of my talks, asserting that the Covid-19 vaccine harmed her. She asked me what I was doing to investigate vaccine injury. I replied that the side effects of vaccines, as they emerge in clinical trials, are investigated, and there is continuous monitoring of vaccinated people by the Food and Drug Administration and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But I wonder: Is that enough? Has my own science contributed to ignoring people who feel they have been harmed and not heard? In that moment, did I really hear this woman, who believed a Covid-19 vaccine had harmed her?
There has been increased attention on people who report long-term negative effects of Covid-19 vaccines. They are not conspiracy theorists or vaccine skeptics. They are, among others, scientists who appreciate the enormous value of vaccines.
For some of them, tinnitus often reported as a ringing in the ears is common. This feels like a perfect metaphor for me: Scientists ought to be better listeners, hearing people out, and taking seriously personal stories of potentially vaccine-related harm. People who speak out about how they feel after getting a vaccine should not be dismissed or assumed to be anti-vaxxers.
For starters, they deserve empathy from their doctors and other health care providers, as well as from those who set and drive vaccine policy. Science owes them and ultimately all of us far more investment in research to validate or invalidate claims of vaccine-related harm. They must be fully investigated to prevent further vaccine-related injuries.
The Covid-19 vaccine is not the only shot for which injuries have been reported. Flu vaccines, which are updated every year, have also been linked to tinnitus and other vaccine side effects. But they generate only a small fraction of the controversy that Covid-19 vaccines did, and the rare injuries do not receive feature news coverage, though that doesnt mean they are any less important for people who are experiencing them.
Vaccine injuries long-term medical consequences from a shot are real phenomena worthy of investigation. When someone somewhere feels harmed, it is the duty of scientists and health care providers to heed these people and listen. Scientists need to better understand what happened and why, so that the next iteration of a vaccine can be better. But scientists arent trained to appreciate anecdotes.
People who feel they have been harmed by a vaccine do not need to have the science immediately explained to them. What they first need is to be heard, and then assured that science will follow.
This kind of work should be similar to research on rare diseases: Find the relatively small number of people who have a specific reaction to a vaccine, then understand what happened and why. But until that point is reached, it is essential to lead with an explanation that is fair and correct on how the probability of experiencing the side effect was far lower than the probability of getting severely ill from Covid-19 or any other vaccine-preventable illness.
For people reporting adverse effects from vaccines, scientists and others can do better at being compassionate, starting with: We hear you. There may be no way today to prove cause and effect with your particular vaccine injury. But we fully appreciate and empathize with what you are going through and owe you and the rest of the public more information about the relationship between the vaccine and the injury you experienced.
And then there are steps that I and others in the vaccine field everyone from researchers to vaccine regulators should take to:
There is a very low probability that I will ever again see the woman who told me about her vaccine injury. Although others may follow, her impact on me has been profound. I know that she represents thousands of other people in pain, and I and other vaccine scientists owe them all a good listen and advocacy on their behalf to learn more.
Kizzmekia S. Corbett-Helaire is an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The views expressed here are hers alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions she is affiliated with.
In April, 43-year-old Gareth Eve told the Mail about life after the shocking death of his wife Lisa Shaw, a BBC journalist. Lisa died in May 2021, aged just 44, after complications following the AstraZeneca vaccine led to blood clots on her brain.
Your response to Gareths article surprised us. We received dozens of letters and emails recounting experiences of ill health, or even bereavement, after having the jab developed by AstraZeneca.
The vaccine was credited with saving millions of lives. In 2022, Professor Sarah Gilbert, the scientist who co-created the vaccine, was presented with a damehood, while the pharmaceutical giants chief executive officer was knighted.
In April, Gareth Eve told the Mail about the shocking death of his wife Lisa Shaw. Complications following the AstraZeneca vaccine led to blood clots on her brain
Yet, in April this year, the company admitted for the first time that the jab wasnt entirely safe; that in very rare cases it can cause a type of blood clotting called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) the condition that killed Lisa.
Figures from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) show 81 deaths now appear to have been linked to the adverse reaction from the vaccine. Hundreds of people have been left with lasting disabilities.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson said: Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems. Patient safety is our highest priority and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines.
From the body of evidence in clinical trials and real-world data, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile, and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.
We are incredibly proud of the role the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine played in ending the global pandemic. According to independent estimates, more than six million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and more than three billion doses were supplied globally.
Because of a loophole, Gareth and many others are unable to join legal action against AstraZeneca for compensation beyond the 120,000 already awarded by the Government.
Lawyers are reluctant to represent those given the vaccine after April 7, 2021 the date the company added a warning about the risk of thrombotic complications to the literature sent out to healthcare professionals.
Meanwhile, those who suffered complications before that date are waiting many months for claims to be assessed.
Here we share some harrowing stories from our readers who fear the vaccine caused deaths or lifelong serious health problems...
Leslie Bounds, 73, from Axminster, Devon, says:
My lovely son, Adam Bounds, died from vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) 11 days after receiving the AstraZeneca jab.
He was 41, fit and healthy, with everything to live for a great job in finance, a lovely home in Bristol and a teenage son. He would still be with us if he had not done what he saw as his public duty to protect those who were more vulnerable to the virus than him and had the Covid vaccine.
He was visiting me at home in Devon when he became very unwell, with a severe headache and vomiting, before losing consciousness a terrifying thing for me, his father, to witness.
He was blue lighted by ambulance to Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital on May 30, 2021. Due to Covid restrictions, I couldnt go with him, and those hours waiting for news were some of the most stressful of my 73 years.
When a CT scan showed an acute right frontal-lobe haemorrhage that was causing compression of Adams brain stem he was transferred to Derriford Hospital, in Plymouth, for neurosurgery.
Sadly, the draining of the blood didnt have a significant impact on the swelling in his brain and, given what the neurosurgeon described as a negligible chance of survival and recovery, a decision was made to let my son go.
A post-mortem showed Adam had blood clots in his abdomen and kidney, which the coroner ruled were indicative of VITT.
It is three years since we lost Adam. He was the life and soul of every event and brought so much joy to our lives. As any parent who has had to bury a child will know, the pain doesnt get any easier.
Leslie Bounds says her son Adam, who died 11 days after receiving the AstraZeneca jab, 'would still be with us if he had not done what he saw as his public duty... and had the Covid vaccine'
Ive spent much of that time fighting for compensation for his son, Owen, who was just 16 when his father died.
A few months ago, he was finally awarded 120,000, which may sound a significant sum, but cant compensate him for the love and support I know Adam would have given Owen for years to come.
I was widowed 12 years ago, when Adams mum died from breast cancer and, hard though it is going through this bereavement without her, I take solace knowing that she was spared the pain of grieving our son.
Pam Fryer, 62, from Saltash, Cornwall, says:
Within days of having the AstraZeneca vaccine, on January 31, 2021, my husband had bleeds on his brain, which have left him a shadow of his former self.
Before the jab his first Mike was fit. He played golf and volunteered for a charity and, aged 79, had no underlying health conditions.
However, just hours after the vaccine, he had a nasty stomach upset and, within days, his co-ordination was so impaired he would trip over his own feet when he walked. He also developed a severe headache, coupled with pressure on the left side of his skull.
I was alarmed by his deterioration but, initially, Mike insisted it was just a mild reaction to the vaccine, which would wear off.
I contacted our GP, who didnt seem to take my concerns seriously. However, in June 2021, Mike was referred for an MRI scan, which showed bleeds on his brain were the cause of his symptoms.
It was then several months, possibly because of the backlog caused by the pandemic, before my husband saw a neurologist.
I told the consultant I believed the vaccine was to blame for the bleeds on Mikes brain and he agreed that was possible.
In April this year, the company admitted that the jab wasnt entirely safe and that in very rare cases it can cause a type of blood clotting
This he later confirmed in his letter to our GP, in which he wrote: His symptoms are likely due to stroke (cerebral haemorrhage). As their onset was soon after his AstraZeneca vaccination, a causal relation is possible.
I am in no doubt the vaccine was the cause. Mikes life has been wrecked his memory is so impaired he can no longer drive or be trusted to cook, for fear hell cause a fire.
The emotional impact on a man who ran his own business for decades and was still as sharp as a tack before the vaccine is even more upsetting to witness.
Hes been so down and frustrated about his situation that he now takes the natural serotonin booster, 5HTP, to lift his mood. It has impacted my life, too. Instead of enjoying old age together, Im now my husbands registered carer.
Two years later, I filled out a Yellow Card online where information about side-effects of drugs are recorded and applied for compensation. But we received a letter saying Mike didnt qualify. Weve appealed, but hes now 82 and his reassessment could take years. I believe the Government and the medical profession want us to put up and shut up.
They dont want to acknowledge, or take responsibility for, people like Mike, whose lives have been blighted by this vaccine.
Annie Bennett, 62, from Farnham, Surrey, says:
I was living near Alicante in Spain, where I had a second home, when I had the AstraZeneca vaccine, my first, in May 2021.
That night I felt feverish, which didnt concern me. However, three days later, I started getting terrible headaches, which werent eased by the paracetamol my GP recommended.
I went to see another doctor who prescribed steroids which provided temporary relief. Yet, 23 days after having the jab, I still felt so wretched headache, sickness, weakness in my body that I couldnt get out of bed.
A concerned neighbour drove me to A&E at the local hospital where they kept me in, running all sorts of scans and tests.
The following day, a trauma doctor came to see me and said: The good news is you dont have a tumour, but you do have a clot in your brain.
I was so shocked and alarmed. I explained that my symptoms had started soon after my AstraZeneca vaccine, which didnt seem to surprise him at all.
He prescribed blood thinners to dissolve the clot and they kept me in for monitoring for another five days. The discharge letter from the trauma doctor stated that I developed a clot in my brain following the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Although I kept taking the blood thinners, it took a long time for the clot to dissolve and I was very unwell for months afterwards. I felt dizzy, with constant headaches, and my vision and balance were too impaired for me to look at a screen, drive or even walk my dog. Perpetual diarrhoea meant I also lost more than three stone.
I came back to the UK in late 2022 I was struggling so much I needed to be close to my family and a scan showed that the clot had finally gone.
However, I still have chronic fatigue symptoms my legs are so weak that sometimes I struggle to climb stairs.
I made an appointment with my GP recently, who ran blood tests. Im still awaiting the results, but she suggested it might be the result of anxiety and wondered if Id considered counselling.
Insulted, I explained that Im a psychotherapist and know that what Im experiencing is physical. Ive consulted a lawyer who says I wont be able to claim compensation through the scheme here as I was living in Spain when I had the jab.
Ill explore other avenues, while living in hope that, at the age of 62, I can finally get back to my pre-vaccine health.
Tracy Ashdown, 58, from Welling, Kent, says:
Within a week of having his second AstraZeneca vaccine, in June 2021, my previously healthy son, Tyler, was treated for serious heart problems, aged 21.
Doctors told us he was too young to have received the AstraZeneca jabs. He was vaccinated earlier than others his age, most of whom were given Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, because he was caring for an elderly relative.
He had a very sore throat which left him unable to swallow in the days after the second vaccine.
A week later, he developed severe pains in his chest and arms and, when he collapsed, his girlfriend called an ambulance and the crew rushed him to Medway Maritime Hospital, believing he was having a heart attack.
Ill never forget my husband and I being woken in the middle of the night by a call from a medic telling us that Tyler was being blue lighted to St Thomas Hospital in London, where a cardiac team was waiting.
He was diagnosed with acute myocarditis inflammation of the heart muscle, which weakens the organ, meaning the rest of his body was deprived of blood.
We were told causes can include viral infections he was tested for Covid and didnt have it as well as reactions to medication.
The doctors wanted to know why Tyler, as he was so young, had received the AstraZeneca vaccine. They mentioned in his discharge letter that hed had a Covid jab a few days before, leading us to think this was the likely cause. He was in hospital for a week, wired up to machines, and given anti-inflammatories and beta blockers, to slow down the heart rate and lower blood pressure.
Three years on, Tyler, who works in a managerial position at my husbands drainage company, is nervous of too much exertion, living in fear of another attack.
What we believe was a reaction to his second AstraZeneca vaccine he had no adverse effects from the first has taken a significant toll on his life and we are now considering an application for compensation.
Within a week of having his second AstraZeneca vaccine in June 2021, Tyler was treated for serious heart problems, aged 21
Carolyn Ash, 62, from Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, says:
In 2021 I developed a rare and debilitating immune disease dermatomyositis which, having ruled out all other causes, my rheumatologist said may be linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
It started with a rash on my back, chest and neck, followed by weakness in my arms and thighs. It then spread to the inside of my throat, making eating impossible.
On New Years Day in 2022, I was so debilitated unable to swallow that my terrified daughter called 999 and I was rushed to hospital.
The most distressing and scary period of my life followed as I spent 11 weeks on steroids, being fed via a nasogastric tube, as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
I was on steroids for a year, lost my hair and developed more deep lesions on my chest and scalp, as well as shingles and pneumonia due to my low immunity.
Dermatomyositis a long-term inflammatory disorder which affects the skin and muscles was eventually diagnosed via a punch biopsy, where a small amount of skin tissue is taken and examined under a microscope.
I was told this disease is usually the result of an underlying condition, including cancer or a viral infection, so every part of my body was scanned and tested and none was found.
My rheumatologist later told me that she would expect to see no more than two people with dermatomyositis throughout her career, but I was one of eight people she was treating at the time, two of whom were on the ward with me at Harrogate District Hospital.
She said colleagues in other hospitals had also reported a dramatic hike in cases during the pandemic. I never contracted Covid, but had two AstraZeneca vaccines in 2021.
Carolyn Ash developed a rare and debilitating immune disease which her rheumatologist said may be linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine
In her letter to my GP, the rheumatologist said of me: She was wondering if this could be related to her Covid-19 vaccine. I have explained that this is not impossible via activation of the immune system.
I am in no doubt thats what caused it. I was a fit and healthy 60-year-old, who, when this disease developed, had only ever been to hospital to deliver my two children.
The damage it has wrought has left me with such lowered immunity that a common cold lasts for weeks.
I cant go in the sun, because of the risk to my highly sensitive skin, and I have constant nerve pain (neuralgia) in my legs.
I take daily medication naproxen and pregabalin for the neuralgia. Without it Im in excruciating pain and cannot walk very far.
I am registered disabled due to the dermatomyositis, though I am determined to stay independent.
I work in sales, mostly from home, because the commute would be too much every day.
I reported my reaction via the Yellow Card scheme, and noticed the number of people with dermatomyositis registering their details there has increased significantly over the past three years.
My claim for compensation was rejected on the grounds that the medical assessor found no direct causation between the vaccination and my condition.
I firmly believe otherwise and plan to appeal this decision.
Patricia Williams, 86, from Swansea, says:
I followed my doctors advice and got my second dose of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine having been fine after the first back in March 2021.
Within hours I had a terrible headache which I couldnt shift and, two nights later, woke at 3am feeling very confused. My speech was slurred and my vision was affected, meaning I was unable to read the telephone number for my neighbour, Mike, who, as I have no children, is a huge support. I stumbled to his door and collapsed in his arms.
Mike immediately called an ambulance. I was terrified of going to hospital because I didnt want to catch Covid, but the paramedics insisted, telling me my blood pressure was so high 200 over 45 Id die without urgent medical care.
A scan at Morriston Hospital showed Id had a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), or mini stroke, where a blockage, usually a blood clot, leads to a lack of oxygen in the brain.
Patricia Williams had a mini stroke two days after receiving her second dose of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine
A few weeks later, AstraZeneca added a warning that its Covid vaccine could, in rare cases, lead to blood clots.
I have no doubt thats what triggered my TIA. Ive suffered headaches ever since and had to have a pacemaker fitted.
Earlier this year I was told I have also developed atrial fibrillation (AF), a condition that causes an irregular and abnormally fast heart rate.
Prior to the vaccines, my life was great. At the ripe old age of 83 I went ballroom dancing three times a week, headed on cruise holidays and saw West End shows.
Now I struggle to get around or even look after myself properly, as my body is weak and I have little stamina.
I reported my reaction, via the Yellow Card scheme, and my application for compensation has been passed to an independent medical assessor.
