Baxter Holmes, ESPN Senior WriterDec 11, 2023, 08:00 AM ET
On July 24, 18-year-old USC freshman guard Bronny James -- the son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James -- suffered cardiac arrest during a workout at USC. In January, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, then 24, suffered cardiac arrest during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. In June 2022, then-incoming USC freshman center Vince Iwuchukwu, then 19, suffered cardiac arrest during a workout. In June 2021, Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen, then 29, suffered cardiac arrest on the pitch during a Euro 2020 match.
In all four instances, the athletes received immediate care from trained specialists and survived. Hamlin, Iwuchukwu and Eriksen have all been cleared to return to play -- and, on Sunday, James made his season debut for USC in a 84-79 overtime loss against Long Beach State, scoring 4 points in 17 minutes of action off the bench.
James' return came after his family announced in August that he had a congenital heart defect that was treatable. Three months later, on Nov. 19, he went through pregame warmups for the first time and, 11 days later, doctors cleared him to return to play. On Thursday, James participated in his first full-contact practice for USC.
James' situation -- along with those of Hamlin, Iwuchukwu and Eriksen -- drew international headlines and raised questions in and around the sports and medical communities about heart issues among young, seemingly healthy athletes. Studies have been commissioned by leading specialists, and cardiologists around the country have tried to address concerned parents, especially in the era of conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Today, after a yearslong pandemic and several rounds of new vaccines and boosters, cardiologists regularly face questions about how COVID-19 and its vaccines impact heart health.
"We are not seeing a signal that pre-COVID and post-COVID [cardiac] events are any different," said Dr. Matthew Martinez, director of the sports cardiology and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy center at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, and a consulting cardiologist for the National Basketball Players Association.
"What we are seeing, however, is that more people are being evaluated as a result of COVID. So we're making the diagnosis of underlying congenital heart disease in those who were unaware [they had it], like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, more frequently than we did before. And because of the fear of myocarditis from COVID, more and more parents and more and more athletes are saying, 'Hey, I have these symptoms, and I'm worried about it,' and they're seeking medical attention."
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Myocarditis is the inflammation of the heart muscle, and it can be found in or develop from viral infections or sometimes in autoimmune diseases. "These inflammatory mediators get stuck inside the heart muscle, and they can make the heart muscles sluggish," said Dr. David J. Engel, director of the sports cardiology program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "And so the pumping strength of the heart goes down, and people can get really sick from it."
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is increased muscle thickness in the heart, and, according to Martinez, it's a common genetic heart disease found in about one in every 500 people worldwide, according to a 2015 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "Most of whom live a normal lifespan and die from something else," said Dr. Steve Ommen, a cardiologist and medical director of the Mayo Clinic's hypertrophic cardiomyopathy clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
It is, however, one of the known causes of cardiac arrest, according to Martinez.
Sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart is beating one minute, and then not beating the next, Martinez said, and the only way to get it pumping again is to use an automated external defibrillator (AED), which sends an electrical shock to the heart. (Cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack, which is when the heart arteries become blocked and the blood flow to the heart muscle is reduced, which leads to damage of the heart muscle. If that damage is extensive, it can cause cardiac arrest.)
"It's not someone who's in the hospital with symptoms of chest pain for the last three days or heart failure over the last few weeks, and they're getting worse and worse and worse, and then they die," Ommen said. "This is 24 hours from the first symptom to their death. And it generally is caused by electrical irregularities in the heart, which make the heart not effective in the way it pumps."
In many instances, though, the cause of the cardiac arrest is unknown.
In an effort to better understand the state of cardiac health among athletes, ESPN interviewed four leading cardiologists, several of whom work with professional and collegiate athletes, and examined recent peer-reviewed studies the cardiologists cited as foundational to these issues.
"Than the general population? No," said Dr. Thomas McGarry, an interventional and clinical cardiologist with Oklahoma Heart Hospital Physicians. "But there are certain athletes that are at risk."
McGarry cites a 2023 study of 76 NCAA and professional athletes who had genetic heart diseases and were allowed to return to play. "And of those 76 individuals, three people had problems, but they all survived because the institutions and/or teams knew what was going on and were able to take care of them very quickly with external defibrillators," he said.
Friday, Dec. 15 Lakers at Spurs, 7:30 p.m. Knicks at Suns, 10 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 22 Wizards at Warriors, 10 p.m.
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Ommen likewise notes that, generally, athletes are not at risk for more cardiac-related issues. "For recreational athletes, the answer is undoubtedly no," he said. "For those of us who aren't professional athletes, more exercise is always better. There are rare conditions like exercise-induced atrial fibrillation, which is abnormal heart rhythm, which is provoked by exercise. So there's a few individuals that we've identified over the last couple of years that have had that on professional sports teams, and generally gotten treated for it and returned to action. But that's kind of a rare thing."
Martinez said the same. "Exercise is medicine. Exercise is our best blood pressure management, it's our best cholesterol management, it's our best mental health management, it is a stress reliever," he said. "For people who are younger than the age of 40, heart-related cardiac risk is often a congenital problem. But for people over the age of 40, it is acquired heart artery disease [heart attacks]. In this group, the best way to prevent sudden cardiac death in that group is with exercise. So exercise doesn't promote risk; it diminishes risk."
It depends.
With myocarditis, "you're going to hold someone out and let that heart muscle heal," Martinez said. "And then once that muscle is healed, you're going to do a risk stratification evaluation by an expert -- an assessment to determine, in part, one's risk of a cardiac event -- to see that they are truly back to that minimal risk that they were in before the myocarditis. And we're going to do the same thing with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy."
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Other cardiologists echoed this point. Engel cites guidelines from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology that a player with active myocarditis should refrain from exercise for three to six months and then be reassessed before returning to play.
"Nearly all of the time, once the inflammation settles down, the heart muscle is left in good condition," Engel said. "And if the markers of active inflammation are no longer present, then the athlete can return to play."
Martinez cites the aforementioned 2023 study, of which he is an author, that examined the 76 athletes who had genetic heart diseases. It shows that "having an underlying cardiac disease is not an automatic disqualification, that an athlete with myocarditis or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy continuing to play after careful review can be done," he said.
According to each cardiologist, the most common link, particularly in earlier COVID-19 variants, is myocarditis. That COVID-19 could lead to myocarditis wasn't unexpected, they say, as myocarditis can often be caused by viral infections.
"Viruses have caused myocarditis for as long as we know anything about viruses, and the COVID virus is not any different," Martinez said. "COVID is one of the viruses that can cause myocarditis. There was myocarditis before COVID, there will be myocarditis after COVID."
A 2021 study published in JAMA Cardiology -- which Martinez helped write -- examined 789 professional athletes with COVID-19 infection who underwent a post-COVID cardiac testing as recommended by the American College of Cardiology. Of that group, the prevalence of myocarditis was low: about 0.6%.
In a nationwide April 2021 study in the American Heart Association journal Circulation that examined 3,018 college athletes who had tested positive for COVID-19 and had a cardiac evaluation, heart issues were found in 21 -- or 0.7% -- of those athletes.
"It's not a strong link," Engel said.
All four cardiologists say heart issues are more likely to arise from COVID-19 viral infection than from the vaccines. Citing a 2023 peer-reviewed study in the international scientific journal Biomedicines, Martinez and Engel note that the rate of someone receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and then having myocarditis is 30 out of 100,000, or 0.03%.
"The concern of myocarditis should not be a justification for not taking the vaccine, because the incidence of myocarditis after the COVID vaccine is exceptionally low," Engel said.
A new vaccine being studied in early clinical trials may hold the potential to help some women with breast cancer, a disease that affects one in every eight women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The vaccine, which has not yet been named, targets triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and deadliest form of breast cancer.
The vaccine's first clinical trial, the results of which were published last week, found that the vaccine caused no significant side effects and achieved a good immune response in 75% of patients in the trial.
The Phase 1 trial was composed of 16 women who received three vaccinations administered once every two weeks, according to Anixa Biosciences, Inc., the California-based company that is developing the vaccine.
The trial was conducted at the Cleveland Clinic and was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, according to Anixa.
"This vaccine is designed to direct the immune system to destroy TNBC cancer cells through a mechanism that has never previously been utilized for cancer vaccine development," Dr. Amit Kumar, chairman and CEO of Anixa Biosciences, said in a statement announcing the trial's results. "We look forward to reviewing additional data as the trial continues to completion, and we are in the planning stages of the Phase 2/3 studies of this vaccine."
The vaccine is currently being designed to stop the recurrence of cancer in patients who have already been treated for triple-negative breast cancer, according to Kumar. He said the next phase of research will focus on utilizing the vaccine to prevent the onset of triple-negative breast cancer.
ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who was not involved in the research, said that while the vaccine is a promising development in the field of breast cancer research, it will be years before it is available to the general public.
"This could, and I want to emphasize could, start to be available in about five years or so," Ashton said of the breast cancer vaccine.
Ashton noted that vaccines already exist for several different types of cancers, including cervical, liver, and metastatic prostate cancer.
Those vaccines, and the new potential new vaccine for breast cancer, all focus on immunotherapy, Ashton explained. When a person develops cancer, the immune system doesn't attack the tumor on its own because the tumor is formed from the person's own cells, according to Ashton.
"Using the concept of immunotherapy now, there are clinical trials in progress that take a snippet from a person's actual tumor and then kind of fold it into, in a lot of cases, MRNA vaccine technology," Ashton said. "So, it lets that loose so that the person's immune system can actually fight its own cancer."
The breast cancer vaccine currently being researched targets a lactation protein, known as -lactalbumin, that is present in the majority of triple-negative breast cancer patients, according to Anixa.
When breast cancer develops, the vaccine instructs the immune system to fight off the tumor and keep it from growing.
Alexandria Thompsons job is to convince the most vulnerable people in her community to get vaccinated for the flu and COVID-19.
She can offer education, transportation and up to $50 in gift cards to entice people to get the shots. But, she says, often that is not enough.
I just tend to lead with the flu shot, and then Ill say COVID right after, said Thompson, the lead canvasser for G.O.T.V. (Get Out the Vaccines), an initiative of the Kansas City advocacy organization Communities Creating Opportunity. Many times, people say no to the COVID shot and, a lot of times, people say yes to the flu shot.
Going on four years since the SARS-CoV-2 virus devastated lives and economies worldwide, health care providers and public health advocates say a growing number of people seem to have lost sight of just how dangerous the virus can be. Perhaps as a result, most people arent rolling up their sleeves for the latest vaccine.
There is little to no interest in it, said Carole Thomas, vice president of clinical operations for KC Care Health Center.
Nationally, just 16% of adults and 7% of children had received the latest version of the shot by the start of December, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Kansas City Health Department administered 1,420 doses between September and early December, fewer than the number given in just one week during the height of the pandemic.
People tend to treat COVID as a cold or just another respiratory illness thats going to be here to stay, said Betty Criss, public health nursing supervisor with the Wyandotte County Health Department. But we still need to take measures to prevent the spread of COVID. We still need to take measures to protect our own health and our own familys health.
When Criss sees available COVID vaccine appointments going unscheduled week after week, she knows a lot of people have forgotten that COVID can still kill.
Although COVID cases are a fraction of what they were three and four years ago, people still end up in the hospital with the disease. On Dec. 8, for example, the University of Kansas Health System had 22 patients hospitalized for the virus. University Health had 13. And St. Lukes Health System had 38.
Besides apathy, health providers said, people refuse the vaccine for political reasons, because of general distrust in the health system or because of blatantly inaccurate information they stumble across from the internet and other media.
Because COVID happened and caused us to be socially isolated from each other a lot of people went down these rabbit holes, Thomas said. A lot of people have very, very strong feelings about it.
Health experts warn that ongoing vaccine avoidance could add up to tragic outcomes for vulnerable patients and, potentially, lead to another devastating public health crisis.
Besides COVID, the country is vulnerable to outbreaks from illnesses, like flu, hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease and measles because too few Americans get vaccinated, said Cecelia Thomas, a senior government relations manager at Trust for Americas Health, a public health policy research and advocacy organization in Washington.
Its not if there will be another pandemic, she said, but when.
During the pandemic, Congress spent heavily and quickly to shore up the countrys ability to make and distribute vaccines and to sell people on the science that supports widespread vaccinations. But that emergency funding is running out.
Thomas said federal spending on immunization efforts has fallen short for a decade and remains precarious. Last year, the federal government doled out $325 million to states, cities and territories, including $5.9 million to Missouri and $2.8 million to Kansas.
A U.S. Senate committee has called for spending $682 million next year, including the money sent to local government and tax dollars that stay with the CDC. The House isnt expected to act on the funding until January.
Thomas contends the country needs to spend closer to $1 billion. Its a snowball, she said. Health agencies dont have funding, so they cant hire people. If they dont hire people, they cant put out education. They cant administer the vaccine.
Ultimately, she said, It all leads down to another big spread of a deadly virus.
Thats exactly what local hospitals want to avoid. Health care administrators say people need to get the message that COVID while much less deadly today can still kill and lead to long-term health issues. The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that by the end of 2022, 6.9 percent of Americans had suffered from long COVID, defined as symptoms that last three or more months after an initial infection.
Complacency is great until you get really sick, said Steven W. Stites, a pulmonologist and chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System.
Its hard to know exactly how the virus will hit individual patients, he said. If its been a long time since you were exposed or vaccinated, your body may not recognize the changed virus and have a harder time fighting it off.
The more changes (the virus) has undergone since the last time you had COVID will really help dictate how fast your body can respond to it, Stites said. Its like seeing some old person you havent seen for 20 years. They look so darn different you cant recognize them.
Staying up to date on the vaccine, even if youre healthy, will help your body win the fight. And, importantly, itll help keep the virus from spreading to more vulnerable people.
The people who are young and healthy, they may get it and they may do OK, said Mark Steele, executive chief clinical officer with University Health. But they may get it and they may give it to somebody whos not young and healthy.
Thats why Thompson of Communities Creating Opportunity will continue to fight rumors and convince people to get the latest shot.
Since September, the G.O.T.V. campaign has led to about 200 people getting the shot.
People who are 65 or older or have a disability can qualify for two $25 Walmart gift cards one for each shot they receive. In addition to getting the vaccines, participants have to fill out a survey to receive the gift cards, which are funded by the Center for Popular Democracy through a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The program has funding to reach 800 to 1,000 participants in the Kansas City area.
Thompson said its particularly important to make progress vaccinating Black people, a group that was hit extremely hard in the pandemic.
Theres a lot of distrust between the medical care system and the Black community because of things that have happened in the past with medicine, Thompson said. She pointed to the Tuskegee experiment, a federally funded effort that studied 400 Black men with untreated syphilis for 40 years without giving them any information about the study.
Thats one reason accurate information is key to the work Thompson is doing.
We try our hardest to spread education because we want people to still get the shot next year, she said. We dont want them to just do it one year because theyre getting incentivized.
FOR MEDICAL AUDIENCES ONLY
Novavaxs updated protein-based non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is now available for use in Poland for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals aged 12 and older. Doses have been distributed by the appropriate Polish authorities and made available for this season's vaccination campaign. The Novavax vaccine is currently the only updated COVID-19 vaccine option available in Poland.
We are pleased that our updated vaccine is available in time for the upcoming Christmas and winter holiday season. We are honored to support both the Polish government and the countrys healthcare workers to help protect Polish citizens and their loved ones against COVID-19. Starting today, individuals across the country can receive an updated vaccine.
Non-clinical datashowed that Novavax's updated COVID-19 vaccine induced functional immune responses against XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 variants. Additional non-clinical data demonstrated that Novavax's vaccine induced neutralizing antibody responses to subvariants BA.2.86, EG.5.1, FL.1.5.1 and XBB.1.16.6 as well as CD4+ polyfunctional cellular (T-cell) responses against EG.5.1 and XBB.1.16.6. These data indicate Novavax's vaccine can stimulate both arms of the immune system and may induce a broad response against currently circulating variants.1,2
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements herein relating to the future of Novavax, its operating plans and prospects, including the availability of its updated XBB version of its Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted (2023-2024 Formula) (NVX-CoV2601) in Poland and the timing of delivery and distribution of its vaccine are forward-looking statements. Novavax cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, challenges satisfying, alone or together with partners, various safety, efficacy, and product characterization requirements, including those related to process qualification and assay validation, necessary to satisfy applicable regulatory authorities; difficulty obtaining scarce raw materials and supplies; resource constraints, including human capital and manufacturing capacity, on the ability of Novavax to pursue planned regulatory pathways; manufacturing, distribution or export delays or challenges; Novavax's exclusive dependence on Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. for co-formulation and filling and the impact of any delays or disruptions in their operations on the delivery of customer orders; challenges meeting contractual requirements under agreements with multiple commercial, governmental, and other entities; and those other risk factors identified in the "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" sections of Novavax's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this press release. You are encouraged to read our filings with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov and www.novavax.com, for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of this document, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of the statements. Our business is subject to substantial risks and uncertainties, including those referenced above. Investors, potential investors, and others should give careful consideration to these risks and uncertainties.
References:
2 hours ago
The plans aim to build on the success of the Covid vaccination programme, NHS England said
People in England will be able to book all their routine vaccinations on a mobile app or online within the next three years under NHS plans.
Health bosses want to build on the Covid vaccination programme in order to increase uptake of other potentially life-saving jabs.
Currently, jabs other than for flu and Covid must be booked over the phone.
NHS England also wants to increase community outreach in areas where the take-up of some jabs is low.
Under the plans, 16 jabs for vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and human papillomavirus (HPV), will be available to book online by the end of 2026.
The new booking system will generate vaccination invitations and appointment alerts.
It will also allow people to view their, and their children's, medical and vaccination records online.
Health Minister Maria Caulfield said: "To ensure as many people get vaccinated as possible, we need to make sure the programme fits around people's lives."
She said the plans also aimed "to reach people who would not typically come forward for their jabs".
"Living Well" buses will increasingly be sent into communities to provide jabs and health checks, under the plans
Greg Fell, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said vaccinations were one of the biggest defences against disease and ill-health, so it was vital that everyone eligible could access them.
"We saw during the Covid-19 pandemic that this is not always as straightforward as sending out an invitation, and also saw the devastating impact low vaccination rates can have on communities," he said.
Under the strategy, health professionals will undertake community work to improve "vaccine confidence", following a drop in uptake of some vaccinations - including the MMR jab - in some areas.
Additionally, vaccines will be offered more widely in non-NHS settings, such as sports centres, shopping centres and people's homes, NHS England said.
Prof Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, welcomed the plans. She said: "The link between uptake rates and vaccine confidence and accessibility is critical and I welcome this renewed focus by NHS England on innovative delivery approaches responding to local need."
Around nine in 10 children in England have received their pre-school immunisations, with flu vaccination rates among the highest in the world, NHS England said. However, this strategy is aimed at increasing rates still further.
Currently, more then 33 million people have signed up to the NHS app.
This autumn so far, 5.1 million NHS flu and Covid vaccines been booked in total online - 1.2 million via the app.
At a Glance
A healthy human pregnancy lasts for about 40 weeks. Preterm birthbirth occurring before 37 weeksincreases the risk of infant death andmany lasting health problems.
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) during the third trimester of pregnancy has been linked with an increased risk of preterm birth. Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been shown to be safe and effective during pregnancy. However, whether they reduce the risk of preterm birth hasnt been clear.
In a new study funded in part by NIH, Dr. Florencia Torche from Stanford University and Dr. Jenna Nobles from the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked more closely at this question. They examined births in California hospitals between 2014 and 2023. Beginning in June 2020, the state tracked COVID testing on mothers upon admission. This provided a highly accurate estimate of infections during labor and delivery among hospitals with universal testing. Results were published in the December 5, 2023, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers analyzed siblings to examine the effects of COVID-19 infections. This approach accounts for other factors that might affect the risk of preterm birth, such as poverty, race and ethnicity, and personal risk factors. The analysis showed that COVID-19 infection raised the risk of preterm birth from 7.1% to 8.3% from July 2020 to February 2023. This increase in risk is similar to that seen from a massive environmental exposure, such as three weeks of exposure to high-intensity wildfire smoke.
The largest effect of maternal COVID-19 infection on preterm birth was in 2020, with the preterm birth rate rising by 5.4% between July and November 2020. COVID-19 infection then increased the probability of preterm birth by around 2-4% during 2021, which saw waves of infections caused by different variants. During 2022, the impact of COVID-19 infection on preterm birthdisappeared.
To tease out the effect of vaccination, the researchers compared the impact of COVID-19 infection on preterm births between areas with the fastest vaccine uptake and those with the slowest. Zip codes with the fastest uptake had an 86% vaccination rate by March 2022. Those with the lowest rates reached 51% during the same time period. Until May 2021, the impact of COVID-19 infection on preterm birth rates was similar between areas. They then dropped sharply in high-vaccination areas, while staying high in low-vaccination areas until almost a year later. This strongly suggests that vaccination accounted for the difference in the rate of preterm births.
By the end of 2022, the impact of COVID-19 on preterm births had faded, despite an increase in infections caused by the Omicron variant. Vaccines had become widely available as well as effective therapies for COVID-19. New variants had emerged, and more of the population had acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2.
As SARS-CoV-2 continues to mutate, updated booster shots will likely be needed to keep immunity high. Currently, booster uptake in pregnant individuals lags behind that of the rest of the population.
We already know there is very little evidence of adverse effects of vaccination on fetal development. The results here are compelling evidence that what will actually harm the fetus is not getting vaccinated, Nobles says. By increasing immunity faster, early vaccination uptake likely prevented thousands of preterm births in the U.S.
by Sharon Reynolds
Funding:NIHs Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD); National Science Foundation.
Adar Poonawalla is the son of Cyrus Poonawalla, the founder of the Serum Institute of India.
Billionaire CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, has sealed a deal to buy a multi-million-pound mansion in London's Mayfair, the Financial Times reported. The sale of the 25,000-square-foot mansion located near Hyde Park in London will make it the most expensive home sale of the year.
Aberconway House, located near London's famous Hyde Park, is a vast 1920s home and will be reportedly sold for at least 138 million pounds (approximately Rs 1,444.4 crore), the FT report said. Dominika Kulczyk, the daughter of the late Polish businessman Jan Kulczyk, will reportedly sell the property to Mr Poonawalla.
As per reports, the property will be acquired by Serum Life Sciences, a British subsidiary of the Poonawalla family's Serum Institute of India.
The price tag makes Aberconway House the second-most expensive home ever sold in London and the biggest deal of the year, according to luxury property agents.
New home sales in London are declining and experts believe this shows London's luxury property market is insulated from the impact of higher borrowing costs which have slowed the UK housing market this year.
A person close to Serum Life Sciences told FT that the Poonawalla family had "no plans" to move to the UK permanently, but that "the house will serve as a base for the company and family when they are in the UK".
The Serum Institute of India is credited for its role during the Covid pandemic. The vaccine manufacturer produced the Serum Covishield vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which was widely used to vaccinate millions of people in India.
Adar Poonawalla is the son of Cyrus Poonawalla, the founder of the Serum Institute of India.
Adar Poonawalla joined the Serum Institute of India in 2001 and became the CEO of Serum Institute with complete control of the day-to-day operations of the company in 2011.
As the holidays approach, so does the risk of COVID and flu infection.
Unfortunately, only16% of adultsin the United States have received a COVID-19 booster vaccine as of last month, andonly 38.7%have received this years flu vaccination.
The statistics for Black Americans are even more alarming, with only 10.7% having received the COVID booster and 33.5% the updated flu vaccine.
The racial gap has drastically narrowed since the first COVID vaccines became available nearly two years ago, when the vaccination rate for Black Americans washalfthat of white people in the United States.Still, by May of this year, only 50% of Black Americans had received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, compared with 55% of White Americans.
In Chicago, city data show that only 6.1% of Black residents and 5.4% of Latinos, compared with 17.7% of whites and 12.2% of Asians, are up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccination series.
Vaccine equity has been a priority of the National Urban League and our nationwide network of affiliates since the first rollout.In response to the early drastic disparity, we commissioned apoll, in partnership with the Alliance of National Psychological Associations for Racial and Ethnic Equity, examining attitudes toward vaccination.
According to our findings, access, not hesitancy, was the primary driver of racial disparity in vaccination rates, contrary to the blame-the-victim media narrative that prevailed at the time.
Among those who were hesitant, the primary barrier was concerns about vaccine safety, much of it stemming from misinformation and conspiracy theories. We immediately recognized our challenge not only to advocate for equitable access to vaccines, but also to employ trusted messengers such as public health professionals, community leaders, and neighbors to address concerns about the vaccines safety.
I was proud to join a group of trusted clergy in my own communitywho received the vaccine publiclyin an effort to build trust.
Thats why we partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on theALL INcampaign, helping to inform Black Americans about the vaccines and to empowered them to make the best decisions for them, their family and their communities.
We enlisted our affiliates, including theChicago Urban League, to use proven electoral outreach strategies, such as phone banking, neighborhood canvassing, or hosting telephone town halls, to engage Black and African American communities directly about vaccines. We trained trusted messengers to participate in text bank campaigns to inform communities on the recommended fall vaccine schedule, knocked on doors to extend invitations to local vaccine events, and offered their expertise to answer questions about the vaccines during local telephone town halls.
Thanks to the efforts of the National Urban League and other racial justice groups, vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans has declined.In fact, the primary the primary predictor of vaccine hesitancy is not race, butpolitical party affiliation, according to a survey byKFF.
Overcoming vaccine hesitancy is just part of the battle. The structural and institutional racial inequities the National Urban League exposed in our State of Black America report, Unmasked still persist.While the Affordable Care Act has drastically expanded health insurance coverage and narrowed the racial gap, 10% of Black Americansremain uninsured,compared with 6.7% of whites. Black Americans are 50% more likelyto go without health caredue to cost.Black children are nearly twice as likely to rely on emergency rooms as their only source of health care.
The most recent National Urban LeagueEquality Index, a calculation of the economic and social status of Black Americans relative to whites, was 84.0% for health.Keeping up to date on vaccinations, especially during this holiday season, is one way we can work to bring the Index to 100%
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League. He served as mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002 and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Georgetown University Law Center.
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds.See our guidelines.
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Booking a jab should be as easy as booking a cab, the head of the NHS has said as part of a drive to push up vaccination rates.
Amanda Pritchard set out plans to extend the NHS app so people can get easier access to their vaccine record, book convenient appointments and keep track of their childrens vaccinations.
The NHS has launched a new vaccines strategy to urge people to get jabs in light of a 10-year decline in some immunisations, with particular concern over the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
MMR jab in 2022/23" data-source="">
In 2022/23, 92.5% of five-year-old children received their first dose of the MMR jab the lowest level since 2010/11.
And only 84.5% of five-year-olds received two doses also the lowest proportion since 2010/11.
The new strategy will set out the need for an easy and convenient front door to vaccines and will plan for tackling regional variations in uptake, including overcoming the hesitancy some parents feel regarding jabs for their children.
The strategy is expected to say that MMR vaccination rates across local authority areas in England vary by as much as 22% and will point to how building trust in local communities could help drive down this variation.
Booking invitations and reminders could be made more personalised and accessible, the strategy will say, while one-stop shops where people can get jabs at the same time as blood pressure checks will be set up.
In 2025/26, the ambition is to use the NHS app to streamline access to a wider group of vaccinations for adults, children and young people, including jab invitations, in-app bookings, appointment notifications and access to vaccination records.
User-experience will also be improved through people being able to access same-day cancellations and make group bookings.
Through the NHS app, well make sure booking a jab can be as easy as booking a cab so millions more people can get vaccinated
Amanda Pritchard, NHS
The strategy is expected to focus on targeting hard-to-reach groups, who are already being seen through initiatives such as school vaccination teams attending parents evenings or pop-up family clinics in childrens hospitals.
Booking and receiving more than one vaccine in a single visit as is already happening for Covid and flu jabs will become easier, while walk-in services will also be more widely publicised.
More use of jab stops in places such as shopping centres will also be encouraged.
Ms Pritchard said: Through the NHS app, well make sure booking a jab can be as easy as booking a cab so millions more people can get vaccinated.
Users will be able to access their full vaccine status in a matter of seconds and book jabs with a simple swipe and tap.
And well continue to expand the amazing work of NHS staff, volunteers and partners to introduce even more pop-up sites in the heart of our local communities.
We want to see even more people supported to take up the offer of lifesaving vaccinations its the best way to protect you and those around you from illnesses which can be fatal, so please do come forward if invited, and if youre unsure or have questions, the NHS is here to help
Steve Russell, NHS England
So, when you are invited for any of your vaccinations, please do book without delay it could be lifesaving.
Steve Russell, national director for vaccinations and screening for NHS England, said: Vaccination is one of the best ways to boost public health, second only to clean water, which is why our vaccine strategy takes vital lessons from our world-leading NHS Covid-19 vaccine programme and the extraordinary efforts of local teams who found innovative ways to reach people during the pandemic and saved thousands of lives.
This includes taking vaccines into the heart of communities where we see lower uptake rates, so offering vaccines at pop-up clinics and health hubs in shopping centres, and local schools teams going into parents evenings to address barriers to people consenting to their childs vaccinations.
We want to see even more people supported to take up the offer of lifesaving vaccinations its the best way to protect you and those around you from illnesses which can be fatal, so please do come forward if invited, and if youre unsure or have questions, the NHS is here to help.
Health minister Maria Caulfield said: To ensure as many people get vaccinated as possible, we need to make sure the programme fits around peoples lives.
More than 33 million people are currently signed up to the NHS app.
The pandemic gave the country opportunities to make health care more affordable and accessible with a public-private partnership the most demonstrably successful pandemic program. The threat of the coronavirus diminished for many Americans thanks to the COVID vaccines.
What have we learned from the experience? What does the future look like for vaccine science and accessibility? What can innovators and policymakers do today to advance medical progress? Join us Tuesday, December 12, 2023, for a conversation on the value, science, and policies surrounding vaccines. A conversation around the value proposition of vaccines in older adults, the important role preventative health care will play in sustaining the viability of our nations healthcare system, and the policies that both sides of the political aisle can support now to reinforce better health outcomes moving forward.
Panelists:
Eric Hargan, Founder and CEO, The Hargan Group
Eric was Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, as well as Acting Secretary in 2017-2018. In addition to serving on the Board of Operation Warp Speed, Eric oversaw the set-up and launch of the Provider Relief Fund, the Kidney Health Initiative, and worked with multiple public and private sector entities to facilitate efforts across the entire endeavor in developing vaccines and therapeutics.
Kirsten Axelsen, nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
She focuses primarily on domestic and international pharmaceutical policy. In addition to her AEI work, Ms. Axelsen is a consultant to biopharmaceutical and other life science companies. Before joining AEI, Ms. Axelsen worked for over 20 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, both in-house and as a consultant. As vice president for strategy and new business assessment in Pfizers Innovative Health and Essential Health units, she oversaw business-development evaluations in the fields of rare disease, oncology, inflammation, immunology, and primary care.
Randall Lutter, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
His research focuses on pharmaceutical markets and policy, medical innovation, and regulation. As senior science and regulatory advisor in the Office of the Commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2017 to 2020. Dr. Lutter previously served at FDA from 2003 to 2009, first as chief economist and later as deputy commissioner for policy.
Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist
He is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. He was the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology. From 1994 until 2018, Dr. Miller was the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
