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Ondo State is one of the 26 states confirmed to have the highest cases of monkeypox. Though the identity of the victims were not revealed, it was gathered that the disease was reported in seven local government areas of the state and government and other stakeholders rose swiftly to avert its spread to other local governments. It came at a time the state battled Lassa fever disease.
The monkeypox disease is a viral disease transmitted to human beings from animals with the National Centre for Disease Control confirming that cases had increased to 277. Between January 1 and August 28, 2022, suspected cases stood at 704. The report also showed that six deaths were recorded so far in six states of the country.
The World Health Organisation noted that Nigeria has the highest monkeypox death toll and confirmed cases in Africa. The organisations Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, stated this during a virtual press briefing tagged, Road to defeating Meningitis by 2030.
Moeti said the most of the monkeypox cases were in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana.
Like other health workers across the country, medical professionals in Ondo State have been working assiduously to combat monkey pox and other diseases in the state. However, their work has not been easy because they also face diverse challenges.
During interviews with some of the workers, they identified increased workload as one of the major challenges facing them due to the insufficiency of doctors and other health workers in government hospitals. Some of them also lamented the issue of inadequate welfare packages for doctors risking their lives to save others.
The Federal Medical Centre, Owo chapter of the Association of Resident Doctors embarked on a two-week warning strike, to press home their demands for more workers in the hospital. Similarly, the state chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association earlier raised the alarm over the matter.
One of the medical consultants at the FMC, Owo, Dr Abejegah Chukwuyem, said the doctors were facing many issues in the treatment and handling of the monkeypox cases.
The medical practitioner, who is also a public health consultant and community medicine physician, in charge of case management of infectious diseases at the federal government-owned hospital, stated that brain drain was a major challenge that needed to be addressed to save the health sector.
He said, Monkeypox is one of the emerging infectious diseases coming up again. It has become a source of concern. For us in Ondo State, we are having series of challenges because we are fighting many infectious diseases outbreaks. It is the same set of people (doctors) that are fighting the diseases. For example, Ondo State is one of the states with highest cases of Lassa fever. Ondo State is the ninth or tenth highest state with COVID 19 cases then in Nigeria. Then, monkey pox came and Ondo State is also one of the highest states with cases in Nigeria. These disease entities are being treated by the same set of infectious physicians, doctors or public health physicians that have decided to give their best to the cases. It is a huge challenge for us. We have been seeing cases both suspected and confirmed. In most of the suspected cases, victims parents or the individuals do not want us to do tests or be labelled monkey pox patients.
He noted that monkeypox was a disease occurring with other diseases, citing a case he handled which the patient was battling leprosy. He added, We have seen cases in children and in adults. Also a woman from Akure North came with the symptoms in her eyes. What happened was that the skin rashes actually started from her eyes, showing symptoms in her eyes before we later found out the rashes were in other parts of her body. We confirmed that it was monkeypox. But she is doing well now.
Chukwuyem also noted that the state was recorded as one of the states with highest cases of the infectious diseases such as monkey pox and Lassa fever. He added that the proactive efforts of those in the surveillance department had been helpful in detecting cases quickly and taking patients blood samples to confirm the statuses of such patients.
Being among states with high cases shows that our surveillance is active. There are many states where the disease will occur and they will not report it probably because of lack of personnel. What we have done in FMC is to build what we call infectious disease units to accommodate different infectious diseases. Thanks to the hospitals managing director and the management, NCDC and the Federal Government. We have buildings for isolation. The one for Lassa fever is separate, the one for COVID is separate and we can also isolate monkey pox patients, he explained.
Another doctor at the University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital, Akure, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Sunday PUNCH that brain drain in the state hospital was affecting the work at the facilitys infectious disease section. The doctor said that a few doctors and health workers were doing many jobs. He also cited the issue of delay in getting the result of samples collected, saying the samples which would be sent to Abuja often spent days before the results were received from Akure.
The doctor said, One of the problems we have is the challenge of brain drain. We have many doctors that have left the state, maybe to another state or outside the country for better offers. The situation makes the work in the infectious disease unit to be more and the government is not really doing much about the matter.
Another challenge is the issue of sample collection. There is a need to decentralise the sample testing centre because everything is done in Abuja. When we collect the samples of patients with monkeypox, for instance, we have to take it to Abuja where the testing centre is. It will take many days before we will get the results. In the process, some patients will become impatient and curious and start disturbing us and at times, they become violent. However, monkeypox is a disease that is real and here with us. We are fighting it and by Gods grace, we are winning.
A nurse at the UNIMEDTH, who gave her name only as Akin because she was not authorised to speak with journalists, described the infectious disease department as a special unit in the hospital requiring a special package from the government. She, however, stated that reverse was the case in Ondo State as doctors, nurses and other health workers in the unit were not getting enough from the government.
The nurse said, We are not getting the best package from the government in terms of welfare and the work is enormous. That is why there are many medical practitioners leaving almost on a daily basis. Another problem we have is the patients themselves. When they have an infection, some of them, instead of coming to the hospital so that their samples will be taken but they wont. They would rather engage in self-medication. We have not been relenting in combating the disease to curtail its spread.
However, in spite of the challenges, the Ondo State Epidemiologist, Dr Stephen Fagbemi, said that the state was not doing badly in the health sector, stressing that the government was proactive regarding catering to the peoples health.
Fagbemi said, We are one of the states that take the issue of health seriously. It is not good for a state not to bother or for health workers in a state not to be aware of what is happening. Monkeypox is sporadic all over the country but we do our best because we are serious about the epidemic. In fact, we have the structure. Every day we insist that if anybody sees anything they should let us know. We collect samples and we send them to Abuja for confirmation. People have been working for years at the hospitals and they know their worth in a system that is open and transparent. There is no week we dont send samples and many of our samples always return negative. Those cases you see, I think about 13 reported in Ondo State are the ones that we have. We sent about 60 samples because we are serious. In Ondo State, we take health seriously because we are still battling Lassa fever. Everybody in the sector, even in the private sector, is trained to know that if they see something, they have to call us. We take their samples and manage them effectively.
We have treatment sites in FMC, Owo. We also treat them at the special disease hospital, Akure and another thing to add about monkeypox is that not all cases are serious. There are some cases we have that dont really require hospital admission. Maybe by the time they present themselves, their case is almost resolving. We do a follow-up and we ensure that they are well isolated in the house. We handle our cases well. We have also done well in the area of sensitisation because the cases I told you are showing up, it is as a result of the sensitisation we are doing. We have done radio jingles and we have also embarked on community engagement. That is why people are coming to the hospital rather than hiding underground and they are confident that when they come, we treat them and the treatment is free and there is no stigmatisation. So when it comes to the issue of health and money pox issues, Ondo State is one of the states that are doing well. Though we are not there yet, we are conducting training for health workers across the state . We do training, not only on monkey pox but also use the opportunity to build our capacity on similar diseases.
In the same vein, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Awolowo Ajaka, said that the state was working towards addressing the problem of brain drain by improving on the welfare of the health workers in the state.
He stated, The state government is doing everything possible to ensure that welfare of health workers is given priority. We dont just want to employ health workers. We want to have data to know how many doctors we have and the optimal level of staffing. We want to redistribute our personnel, not just saying we dont have enough personnel in certain local government areas while we have many in another local government area.
Myth 1: Influenza is not serious so I dont need the vaccine
Fact: As many as 650 000 people a year can die of the flu. This only represents respiratory deaths, so the likely impact is even higher. Even healthy people can get the flu, but especially people whose immune systems are vulnerable. Most people will recover within a few weeks, but some can develop complications including sinus and ear infections, pneumonia, heart or brain inflammations.
Myth 2: The flu vaccine can give me the flu
Fact: The injected flu vaccine contains an inactivated virus that cannot give you influenza. If you feel achy or slightly feverish, it is a normal reaction of the immune system to the vaccine, and generally lasts only a day or two.
Myth 3: The flu vaccine can cause severe side effects
Fact: The flu vaccine is proven to be safe. Severe side effects are extremely rare. One in a million people may get Guillain-Barr Syndrome (GBS), which cause muscle weakness and paralysis.
Myth 4: I had the vaccine and still got the flu, so it doesnt work
Fact:Several flu viruses are circulating all the time, which is why people may still get the flu despite being vaccinated since the vaccine is specific to one strain. However, being vaccinated improves the chance of being protected from the flu. This is especially important to stop the virus affecting people with vulnerable immune systems.
Myth 5: I am pregnant so shouldnt get the flu vaccine
Fact: Pregnant women should especially get the flu vaccine since their immune systems are weaker than usual. The inactivated flu vaccine is safe at any stage of pregnancy.
As we head into cooler weather, its time to think about flu and COVID-19 risks. Flu season will soon be upon us. Spending more time indoors means that theres more opportunity for COVID-19 to spread. To protect against these two threats, the Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD) strongly recommends that residents get an annual flu vaccine AND stay up-to-date on COVID vaccinations and boosters.
The CDC recommends that all people age 6 months and older get vaccinated against the flu vaccination, with rare exceptions. Different flu vaccines are approved for people of different ages. Everyone should get a flu vaccine that is appropriate for their age. The Cambridge Public Health Departments clinics will offer regular flu vaccine, flu nasal spray, and high-dose flu vaccine.
Vaccination against COVID-19 is recommended for everyone age 6 months and older. People age 5 and older should receive boosters. Updated bivalent boosters, which offer protection against multiple COVID variants, are currently recommended for everyone age 12 and older.
Flu shots and COVID vaccines and boosters are widely available at local pharmacies and many doctors offices. CPHD is also offering several community vaccination clinics in locations across Cambridge to make it even more convenient for residents to protect themselves against serious illness this winter. These CPHD clinics will begin in October and offer flu and COVID vaccines and boosters for residents age 6 months and older.
To view the CPHD vaccine clinic schedule and learn more about flu and COVID-19 vaccination, visit the CPHD website.
Make an appointment for a flu and/or COVID vaccine here. Residents can check both the flu and COVID options to register for two vaccines at the same time.
Health officials are predicting this winter could see an active flu season on top of potential COVID surges. In short, it's a good year to be a respiratory virus. Left: Image of SARS-CoV-2 omicron virus particles (pink) replicating within an infected cell (teal). Right: Image of an inactive H3N2 influenza virus. NIAID/Science Source hide caption
Health officials are predicting this winter could see an active flu season on top of potential COVID surges. In short, it's a good year to be a respiratory virus. Left: Image of SARS-CoV-2 omicron virus particles (pink) replicating within an infected cell (teal). Right: Image of an inactive H3N2 influenza virus.
The flu virtually disappeared for two years as the pandemic raged. But influenza appears poised to stage a comeback this year in the U.S., threatening to cause a long-feared "twindemic."
While the flu and the coronavirus are both notoriously unpredictable, there's a good chance COVID cases will surge again this winter, and troubling signs that the flu could return too.
"This could very well be the year in which we see a twindemic," says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University. "That is, we have a surge in COVID and simultaneously an increase in influenza. We could have them both affecting our population at the same time."
The strongest indication that the flu could hit the U.S. this winter is what happened during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. Flu returned to some countries, such as Australia, where the respiratory infection started ramping up months earlier than normal, and caused one of the worst flu seasons in recent years.
What happens in the Southern Hemisphere's winter often foreshadows what's going to happen north of the equator.
"If we have a serious influenza season, and if the omicron variants continue to cause principally mild disease, this coming winter could be a much worse flu season than COVID," Schaffner warns.
And the combination of the two viruses could seriously strain the health system, he says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that flu causes between 140,00 and 710,000 hospitalizations annually.
"We should be worried," says Dr. Richard Webby, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. "I don't necessarily think it's run-for-the-hills worried. But we need to be worried."
The main reason the flu basically disappeared the last two years was the behavior changes people made to avoid COVID, such as staying home, avoiding public gatherings, wearing masks, and not traveling. That prevented flu viruses from spreading too. But those measures have mostly been abandoned.
"As the community mitigation measures start to roll off around the world and people return to their normal activities, flu has started to circulate around the world," says Dr. Alicia Fry, who leads influenza epidemiology and prevention for the CDC. "We can expect a flu season this year for sure."
The CDC is reporting that the flu is already starting to spread in parts of the south, such as Texas. And experts caution very young kids may be especially at risk this year.
Though COVID-19 generally has been mild for young people, the flu typically poses the biggest threat to both the elderly and children. The main strain of flu that's currently circulating, H3N2, tends to hit the elderly hard. But health experts are also worried about young children who have not been exposed to flu for two years.
"You have the 1-year-olds, the 2-year-olds, and the 3-year-olds who will all be seeing it for the first time, and none of them have any preexisting immunity to influenza," says Dr. Helen Chu, assistant professor of medicine and allergy and infectious diseases and an adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington.
In fact, the flu does appear to have hit younger people especially hard in Australia.
"We know that schools are really the places where influenza spreads. They're really considered the drivers of transmission," Chu says. "They'll be the spreaders. They will then take it home to the parents. The parents will then take it to the workplace. They'll take it to the grandparents who are in assisted living, nursing home. And then those populations will then get quite sick with the flu."
"I think we're heading into a bad flu season," Chu says.
Some experts doubt COVID and flu will hit the country simultaneously because of a phenomenon known as "viral interference," which occurs when infection with one virus reduces the risk of catching another. That's an additional possible reason why flu disappeared the last two years.
"These two viruses may still both occur during the same season, but my gut feeling is they're going to happen sequentially rather than both at the same time," Webby says. "So I'm less concerned about the twindemic."
Nevertheless, Webby and others are urging people to make sure everyone in the family gets a flu shot as soon as possible, especially if the flu season arrives early in the U.S. too. (Most years officials don't start pushing people to get their flu shots until October.)
So far it looks like this year's flu vaccines are a good match with the circulating strains and so should provide effective protection.
But health officials fear fewer people will get flu shots this year than usual because of anti-vaccine sentiment that increased in reaction to COVID vaccinations. Flu vaccine rates are already lagging.
"We are worried that people will not get vaccinated. And influenza vaccine is the best prevention tool that we have," the CDC's Fry says.
Fry also hopes that some of the habits people developed to fight COVID will continue and help blunt the impact of the flu.
"The wild card here is we don't know how many mitigation practices people will use," Fry says. "For example, people now stay home when they're sick instead of going to work. They keep their kids out of school. Schools are strict about not letting kids come to school if their sick. All of these types of things could reduce transmission."
JACKSONVILLE, Fla For the sixth year, Florida Blue and Walgreens are teaming up to provide flu shots and other vaccinations to the public at Florida Blue Centers across the state this fall. Insurance cards from any carrier are welcome, but health insurance is not required. Everybody receiving a vaccine at a Florida Blue Center will receive a $10 Publix gift card, while supplies last.
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This Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. free flu vaccines and other boosters will be available at the following spaces:
Florida Blue Center Town Center, 4855 Town Center Parkway, Jacksonville, FL 32246
Florida Blue Center North, 13249 City Square Dr, Suite 103, Jacksonville, FL 32218
Winston Family YMCA, 221 Riverside Ave, Jacksonville, FL 32202 (vaccinations only).
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In addition to flu vaccines, COVID-19 boosters, pneumonia, TDAP and shingles vaccines are available. Get caught up on your vaccinations at a Florida Blue Center. The vaccines protect both you and those around you, helping to lower hospitalizations in our community.
Flu shots are available for persons ages 3 and older and 3D Mammogram Screenings (Town Center) and other health and community resources will be available as well.
The event is inviting families out to enjoy other fun activities they are hosting, like pumpkin decorating, family photos and live radio remotes.
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People with health insurance should bring their insurance cards with them, even from a carrier other than Florida Blue. Flu vaccines are covered at no cost for persons who do not have health insurance coverage.
Appointments are encouraged, but not required. Schedule an appointment here.
Masks are encouraged inside the Florida Blue Centers.
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Imagine trying to medicate a bug.
That was the task taken on by a group of researchers at MassBiologics of UMass Chan Medical School (UMass Chan) in Massachusetts: They developed a way to get an antibody into ticks to neutralize the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, the most common vector-born disease in the United States.
But no, the researchers did not give shots to ticks. They injected the antibody into humans so that people can transmit the antibody to ticks that bite them.
We are trying to deliver a medicine to a tick so that it doesnt pass on the infection to the patient, says Mark S. Klempner, MD, a professor of medicine at UMass Chan. The patient provides the vehicle to deliver the antibody to the infected tick.
Targeting ticks to prevent Lyme rather than fighting off an infection after it begins is the fundamental strategy behind three projects that aim to create the only medication to prevent the disease in people. The disease sets off a series of escalating symptoms, starting with a red rash, fatigue, fever, headache, and a mild stiff neck, and sometimes escalating if left untreated to serious complications to joints (arthritis), the heart, and the nervous system.
The current projects come two decades after the first human Lyme vaccine, LYMErix, was pulled from the market because of factors that researchers believe their new products will overcome. Heres where the projects stand:
If any of these products are eventually approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it would put humans nearly on par with dogs; they can get four Lyme vaccines made just for them. The lack of a human version has little to do with the science of making one. Klempner knows that well, as he worked on one of two Lyme vaccines that showed strong clinical trial results in the 1990s.
It was not very difficult to develop, Klempner recalls of the vaccine, Imulym, made by Pasteur Merieux Connaught but never brought to market. In terms of difficulty from a biological and medical standpoint, it was relatively straightforward.
The new efforts build on the basic strategy of those vaccines.
Creatures that spread diseases through bites such as mosquitos that transmit malaria and raccoons that transmit rabies usually deliver the virus, bacteria, or parasite instantly. But when a black-legged tick latches onto someone, it takes at least 36 hours to pass along the Lyme-causing bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, says Gary Wormser, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at New York Medical College. That lag, he notes, provides time for antibodies to get into the ticks gut and prevent transmission of the bacterium before it sets off an infection in the human.
Whats more, the bacterium has virtually no machinery to survive mutation, Klempner says, so that researchers can identify and stick with antibodies that eradicate the bacterium rather than having to keep up with mutated versions. (Rapid viral mutation is a main reason that scientists have yet to develop a vaccine against HIV.)
LYMErix, manufactured by what was then SmithKline Beecham, induced patients to produce antibodies that a tick would absorb from its victims blood and that neutralized Borrelia burgdorferi. Studies showed the vaccine to be about 75% effective in blocking the disease. The FDA approved it in 1998.
It wasnt a perfect vaccine, but it was good, says Eugene Shapiro, MD, professor of epidemiology and investigative medicine at Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut.
As a marketable product, however, LYMErix faced compounding drawbacks. Sam Telford, ScD, professor of vector-borne infections and public health at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who helped run the vaccines clinical trials, notes that Lyme was far less prevalent then and was more restricted to a few geographic regions, thus limiting the market for a vaccine. (The Ixodes ticks that can carry Lyme disease, commonly known as deer ticks, have been most common in the northeast, Mid-Atlantic and north-central states, but their reach has been expanding.)
That, along with Lyme being seen as easily treatable if you catch it at the early stages, led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a lukewarm recommendation for the vaccine as rarely necessary and prompted many doctors to shrug it off, Telford recalls. Potential consumers felt lukewarm as well, for reasons that included the inconvenience of the three-dose regimen of injections over 12 months, uncertainty over how long the protection would last, and the absence of approval for use on anyone under 15 because LYMErix was not tested in children.
The final blow, Telford says, was claims by some recipients that the vaccine induced a form of arthritis. Although an FDA analysis of side effects among vaccinated people found no evidence to support the allegation, LYMErix sales fell under the weight of the negative publicity and a class action suit. The manufacturer (renamed GlaxoSmithKline) withdrew the vaccine in 2002.
That experience chilled research into prophylactic treatments against Lyme, Klempner says, even though biologically, its an easy target.
Over the past 20 years, cases of Lyme disease have multiplied and spread , with experts citing climate change (which can make cold areas more hospitable to the ticks lifecycle) and the increasing encroachment of human development adjacent to forested animal habitats.
Lyme disease is all over the place in much of the U.S., Telford says.
Nailing down its prevalence is tricky. The CDC says it gets about 30,000 reported cases from doctors each year, but notes that this number does not reflect all diagnosed cases. An analysis based on private insurance claims , conducted by CDC researchers, estimated that each year 476,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed and treated for the disease. (Some people are treated based on symptoms without confirmation of having Lyme.) A recent report from the nonprofit FAIR Health, which studies health care costs and coverage, found that from 2007 to 2021 Lyme diagnoses rose 357% in rural regions and 65% in urban areas.
The growth of cases and public awareness have encouraged researchers that a market exists for prophylactics against Lyme. The medical need for vaccination against Lyme disease is steadily increasing as the geographic footprint of the disease widens, Pfizer and Valneva said in a news release last month about their vaccine project.
Here is a summary of the three most advanced development projects:
Pfizer and Valneva: Their vaccine, VLA15, induces the patient to create antibodies that block a protein, OspA, on the surface of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium. Blocking OspA inhibits the bacteriums ability to leave the tick and infect humans, the companies state.
The vaccine requires three doses. With a phase 2 trial showing promising results in producing immune responses, the companies have started a phase 3 trial to enroll approximately 6,000 participants, ages 5 years and up, at 50 sites where Lyme is prominent. Because the vaccine produces antibodies to combat strains of the virus in Europe as well as the United States, there are test sites in the U.S., Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden.
Shapiro notes that this vaccine does not include an epitope the part of a molecule to which an antibody attaches itself that was implicated in the arthritis claims against LYMErix.
The companies say they hope to have the vaccine licensed in 2025.
MassBiologics: Rather than prompt a patient to produce antibodies, the Lyme Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (Lyme PrEP) delivers a monoclonal antibody a lab-made protein that binds to the surface of the bacteria against the common U.S. strain of Lyme. Like VLA15, this medication targets the OspA protein.
Lyme PrEP conveys immunity almost immediately, Klempner says, as opposed to the weeks it might take a person to develop antibodies on their own after several shots. The person is immune within hours or days, he says.
In addition, Klempner notes, one antibody is less likely to trigger adverse effects in a patient than a medication that involves numerous antibodies, and the shot would be given once a year, at the start of tick season.
With a phase 1 trial showing no significant adverse effects, Klempner,former executive vice chancellor at MassBiologics, hopes a phase 2-3 clinical trial to test effectiveness can start in spring 2023.
Yale SOM: Yale University researchers designed a vaccine that recognizes a ticks saliva and sparks a skin reaction that makes it hard for ticks to hang on and feed. Created with mRNA technology which helps to accelerate the production of vaccines, such as those against COVID-19 this medicine quickly produces redness at the site of a tick bite, alerting victims to the bite and increasing the chances that they can remove the tick before it delivers the Lyme-causing bacterium.
If you can remove the tick that was on for less than 36 hours, youre not going to get Lyme, Wormser says.
Trials on guinea pigs showed that when ticks were removed after redness appeared, none of the immunized animals developed Lyme disease. In addition, the ticks fed poorly and detached sooner than normal, Yale reports.
These advances provide hope for a Lyme disease vaccine within several years. Yet researchers offer caution. They warn that people vaccinated against Lyme will have to take precautions against other diseases that ticks transmit, like by wearing long-sleeved clothing in wooded areas and inspecting themselves for ticks after forest forays.
Its not like you can go out and say, Im vaccinated, I dont have to worry about tick bites, Telford says. There is no such thing as a good tick bite.
The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service hosted its annual Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals (the Sammies) on Tuesday evening, during which a trio from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention won the COVID-19 response award for their work starting in mid-2020 designing and implementing a plan to distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the country and to inform the public about them before the vaccines were even available.
Thanks to the efforts of the CDCs task forcewhich at its peak had more than 700 full-time members and, overall, benefited from the work of more than 1,500 peoplemore than 570 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the United States, said the Partnership. This occurred with regular public communication and new levels of data-sharing among local, state and federal levels about safety issues, and strategies to reach new populations approved for vaccination.
Dr. David Fitter, an epidemiologist at the CDC who co-led the vaccine distribution task force, told Government Executive at the event that we get to represent thousands of people who worked on this together.
CDCs Dr. Amanda Cohn said the ceremony and seeing all the winners makes you really proud to work for the federal government. Here are some of the other recent headlines you might have missed.
The Justice Department announced on Tuesday federal criminal charges against 47 defendants for their alleged part in a $250 million fraud scheme exploiting a federally funded program meant to feed underserved kids in Minnesota during the pandemic. These indictments, alleging the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date, underscore the Department of Justices sustained commitment to combating pandemic fraud and holding accountable those who perpetrate it, said Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a statement. In partnership with agencies across government, the Justice Department will continue to bring to justice those who have exploited the pandemic for personal gain and stolen from American taxpayers.
On Wednesday, the Justice inspector general office released a report on how the departments criminal division and Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys managed and coordinated pandemic-related allegations and referrals. While [both] have provided guidance, training, and policies to their prosecutors, they can better leverage the limited resources available to address fraud by enhancing the tracking, management, and notification of fraud referrals and initiated cases, said the report. We also identified successful prosecutorial practices employed by various USAOs, which, once shared by EOUSA across the districts, could further improve the Department of Justices response to pandemic-related fraud.
Following testing failures early in the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration has an opportunity to better plan for and respond to current and future public health emergencies, the Health and Human Services Department watchdog said in a report published this week. One recommendation is prior to the next emergency, FDA should work with key stakeholders in the lab community to determine how to communicate during and in advance of a public health emergency, said the report. Another is FDA should develop technical guidance and educational material [for test developers] to ease some of its workload during any current and future emergency response and to ensure that these resources are available to developers as early in an emergency as possible. The FDA agreed with all six recommendations from the IG.
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee issued a risk advisory this week warning of potential identity theft of minors and elderly individuals in the Housing and Urban Developments housing assistance programs to apply for the Small Business Administrations COVID relief programs. The PRACs Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence identified possible identity or other fraud in one or more of these SBA programs involving 945 minors (under 18 years old) and 231 elderly individuals (80 years and older), said the advisory. While we understand that the information may not involve fraud or identity fraud in all instances, we are offering to provide the supporting data directly to SBA because it strongly indicates that further SBA management review is warranted.
Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the coronavirus? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.
In May 2022, the United States confirmed the first monkeypox case in Massachusetts. As of Sept. 24, there have been 24,846 confirmed cases in all 50 states, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
Monkeypox virus is a part of the same family as the variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox. Individuals who are infected may experience a milder version of smallpox symptoms, according to the CDC.
The most common symptoms are rashes that initially may look like pimples or blisters, and can appear on various parts of the body such as the face, inside the mouth, hands, feet and genitals, the CDC said.The lesions are often described as painful until the healing phase. The illness normally lasts 2-4 weeks. The virus is rarely fatal.
Monkeypox can be spread to anyone through close contact with a person that is infected. The virus can be transmitted through intimate physical contact such as sex, kissing, hugging or direct contact with infectious rashes, scabs or fluids.
Jeff Hogan, an animal health researcher at the University of Georgias Department of Infectious Diseases, said once a person is infected with monkeypox, the virus begins to slowly replicate to where it spreads systemically in the body. This means that after the rashes appear on the skin, the virus will spread through the circulatory system, which deals with pumping blood through the body, and to the internal organs such as the spleen and liver.
When it comes to creating the vaccine for monkeypox, the process in which the virus is repeatedly grown causes it to be diluted and not as harmful as it originally was, Hogan said. Later on, the weakened live virus is injected into a person as the vaccine.
Once an individual has been vaccinated, the virus will replicate in the body, Hogan said. With the presence of the virus in the body, white blood cells respond against the virus by creating antibodies.
The immune system would recognize that vaccine as something foreign, generating the antibodies response, said Jarrod Mousa, a UGA assistant professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases. The antibodies would then create a long lasting protection against monkeypox and smallpox.
With the shortage of vaccine availability, the vaccines are given with a decrease in the dosage.
Overall, the decrease in dosage may be beneficial to the individual getting vaccinated as it also decreases the number of adverse effects, Hogan said, but the person needs to have enough of the virus particles in order for the antibodies to be created.
The decrease in dosage has led to the monkeypox vaccine being administered two different ways: subcutaneously, where the vaccine is inserted in a layer of fat between the skin and muscle, and intradermally, where the vaccine is injected into the top layer of the skin, according to the CDC.
Rama Amara, a professor at Emory Universitys vaccine center and department of microbiology and immunology, said injecting the vaccine into the skin and giving a lower dose of it could produce an immune response. There are different kinds of cells in the skin that trigger the white blood cells to make antibodies.
In comparison to the COVID-19 virus, the monkeypox vaccine is a live virus while the COVID-19 dealt with an mRNA vaccine, Mousa said. The COVID-19 vaccine uses messenger RNA as its genetic material but the vaccines are only the instructions for making a part of the virus, meaning that the live virus is not injected.
According to Mousa, with monkeypox, once the individual is vaccinated, the DNA of the live virus gives instructions to the cells on how to make more of it. The virus has proteins on its surface and contains DNA on the inside to store its genetic material.
For individuals who are planning to get vaccinated, it is important to look at risk factors, Amara said. We need to think about people with HIV [and who had a] transplant; these are more vulnerable people. So we need to see if we are going to see an increased infection among these people, Amara said.
U.S. health officials say 4.4 million Americans have rolled up their sleeves for theupdated COVID-19 booster shot.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the count Thursday as public health experts bemoaned President Joe Bidens recent remark that the pandemic is over.
The White House said more than 5 million people received the new boosters by its own estimate that accounts for reporting lags in states.
Health experts said it is too early to predict whether demand would match up with the 171 million doses of the new boosters the U.S. ordered for the fall.
No one would go looking at our flu shot uptake at this point and be like, Oh, what a disaster, said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. If we start to see a large uptick in cases, I think were going to see a lot of people getting the (new COVID) vaccine.
A temporary shortage of Moderna vaccine caused some pharmacies to cancel appointments while encouraging people to reschedule for a Pfizer vaccine. The issue was expected to resolve as government regulators wrapped up an inspection and cleared batches of vaccine doses for distribution.
I do expect this to pick up in the weeks ahead, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. Weve been thinking and talking about this as an annual vaccine like the flu vaccine. Flu vaccine season picks up in late September and early October. Were just getting our education campaign going. So we expect to see, despite the fact that this was a strong start, we actually expect this to ramp up stronger.
Some Americans who plan to get the shot, designed to target the most common omicron strains, said they are waiting because they either had COVID-19 recently or another booster. They are following public health advice to wait several months to get the full benefit of their existing virus-fighting antibodies.
Others are scheduling shots closer to holiday gatherings and winter months when respiratory viruses spread more easily.
Retired hospital chaplain Jeanie Murphy, 69, of Shawnee, Kansas, plans to get the new booster in a couple of weeks after she has some minor knee surgery. Interest is high among her neighbors from what she sees on the Nextdoor app.
Theres quite a bit of discussion happening among people who are ready to make appointments, Murphy said. I found that encouraging. For every one naysayer there will be 10 or 12 people who jump in and say, Youre crazy. You just need to go get the shot.
Biden later acknowledged criticism of his remark about the pandemic being over and clarified the pandemic is not where it was. The initial comment didnt bother Murphy. She believes the disease has entered a steady state when well get COVID shots in the fall the same as we do flu shots.
Experts hope shes right, but are waiting to see what levels of infection winter brings. The summer ebb in case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths may be followed by another surge, Dowdy said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, asked Thursday by a panel of biodefense experts what still keeps him up at night, noted that half of vaccinated Americans never got an initial booster dose.
We have a vulnerability in our population that will continue to have us in a mode of potential disruption of our social order, Fauci said. I think that we have to do better as a nation.
Some Americans who got the new shots said they are excited about the idea of targeting the vaccine to the variants circulating now.
Give me all the science you can, said Jeff Westling, 30, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who got the new booster and a flu shot on Tuesday, one in each arm. He participates in the combat sport jujitsu, so wants to protect himself from infections that may come with close contact. I have no issue trusting folks whose job it is to look at the evidence.
Meanwhile, Bidens pronouncement in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast Sunday echoed through social media.
We still have a problem with COVID. Were still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over, Biden said while walking through the Detroit auto show. If you notice, no ones wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think its changing.
By Wednesday on Facebook, when a Kansas health department posted where residents could find the new booster shots, the first commenter remarked snidely:
But Biden says the pandemic is over.
The presidents statement, despite his attempts to clarify it, adds to public confusion, said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington.
People arent sure when is the right time to get boosted. Am I eligible? People are often confused about what the right choice is for them, even where to search for that information, Michaud said.
Any time you have mixed messages, its detrimental to the public health effort, Michaud said. Having the mixed messages from the presidents remarks, makes that job that much harder.
University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi said hes worried the presidents pronouncement has taken on a life of its own and may stall prevention efforts.
That soundbite is there for a while now, and its going to spread like wildfire. And its going to give the impression that Oh, theres nothing more we need to do, Salemi said.
If were happy with 400 or 500 people dying every single day from COVID, theres a problem with that, Salemi said. We can absolutely do better because most of those deaths, if not all of them, are absolutely preventable with the tools that we have.
New York City photographer Vivienne Gucwa, 44, got the new booster Monday. Shes had COVID twice, once before vaccines were available and again in May. She was vaccinated with two Moderna shots, but never got the original boosters.
When I saw the new booster was able to tackle omicron variant I thought, Im doing that, Gucwa said.
I dont want to deal with omicron again. I was kind of thrilled to see the boosters were updated.
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AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard and AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller contributed. ___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
