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U.S. approves RSV vaccine for older adults
The U.S. FDA made history this past week by approving the world’s first RSV vaccine.
The Arexvy shot, made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was given the green light for individuals 60 and older on Wednesday.
RSV is a cold-like nuisance for most healthy people. But for the very young, the elderly and people with certain health problems, it can be serious, even life-threatening. The virus can infect deep in the lungs, causing pneumonia, and with babies, it can impede breathing by inflaming tiny airways.
Like COVID-19, RSV spreads through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It can also spread by kissing or coming in contact with surfaces contaminated with the virus.
While Canada currently doesn’t have a vaccine for RSV, Health Canada has accepted and is reviewing Pfizer Canada’s bivalent RSV vaccine for babies under six months and individuals aged 60 and above.
Read more here.
Clouds are harbouring dangerous bacteria
Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics can live on the surfaces of plants or within the soil, but they can also survive in clouds, according to new research.
A recent study from the Université Laval in Quebec and Université Clermont Auvergne in France showed for the first time that bacteria carrying antibiotic-resistant genes can be harboured and carried in the atmosphere.
That means they can travel thousands of kilometres and potentially invade new environments.
Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Disease Centre, believes the study is important in highlighting “another way in which these bacteria can spread from one location to another.”
“They are existing on the ground and they evaporate up into clouds. The clouds move, it rains, and then the bacteria are spread to that new location,” he said.
Read more about the findings and what they mean for global health here.
— THE TOPIC —
WHO says COVID-19 no longer global health emergency
— WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING —
Is it finally over?
Well, sort of. On Friday, the World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency, more than three years after it classified it as such.
The decision came following a recommendation from the organization’s emergency committee, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
However, that doesn’t mean the pandemic is over or that the virus is no longer a health threat.
Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said, “the global public health emergency has ended” but noted there’s “still a public health threat out there.”
“We fully expect that this virus will continue to transmit,” he said.
“The battle is not over.”
The WHO first declared COVID a public health emergency of international concern on Jan. 30, 2020, and classified it as a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
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