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Discovery, Development & Delivery Of Safe, Effective & Affordable Vaccines For Global Public Health — Dr. Jerome H. Kim, M.D., Director General, International Vaccine Institute (IVI)

Dr. Jerome H. Kim, M.D., is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI — https://www.ivi.int/), a nonprofit International Organization established in 1997 as an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), dedicated to the discovery, development and delivery of safe, effective and affordable vaccines for global public health.

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After months of shortages, pharmacies across the United States are being stocked with drugs to treat Covid-19. Now, the bottleneck has shifted to getting a prescription — and patients and public health agencies are looking to telehealth for help.

“Sometimes we hear telehealth is going to cure all of our challenges with access to health care, and that’s just not the case,” said Michelle Morse, chief medical officer of New York City’s department of health. “It’s a significant step forward in access, and yet there are still equity concerns with telehealth. It’s not a panacea.”

The patients most likely to know about and navigate digital health platforms to access the antivirals are typically younger, more affluent, and already well-served by the health system. And while a small group of public health departments are offering free telehealth, the end of the Health Resources and Services Administration Covid-19 Uninsured program means that uninsured patients may struggle to pay for teleservices, let alone any Covid care.

Continue reading “Telehealth aims to crack open Paxlovid’s prescription bottleneck” »

New technology could add another layer of protection against the next pandemic by simply turning on a light. Researchers are exploring a new way of using ultraviolet light to make indoor air safer.

“It’s been known for 80 years or so that ultraviolet light can kill bacteria and inactivate viruses in the air so that they’re no longer infectious,” Don K. Milton, professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told CBS News.

Conventional UV-C light has been used extensively in places like hospitals, homeless shelters and prisons. But that conventional UV light can damage the skin and eye, so should not be shined directly at people.

* Astrocytes play a variety of roles with neurons, but until now, scientists did not know that these cells carry electrical impulses.

* Applying new technology, Tufts University scientists recently discovered in mice that astrocytes are electrically active like neurons. Astrocytes play a variety of roles with neurons, but until now, scientists did not know that these cells carry electrical impulses.

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that facilitate the transfer of electrical signals between neurons and support the blood-brain barrier. Scientists have long understood that astrocytes control these substances to support neuronal health.

Continue reading “Researchers find new function performed by almost half of brain cells” »

Researchers have identified distinct differences among the cells comprising a tissue in the retina that is vital to human visual perception. The scientists from the National Eye Institute (NEI) discovered five subpopulations of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)—a layer of tissue that nourishes and supports the retina’s light-sensing photoreceptors. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers analyzed images of RPE at single-cell resolution to create a reference map that locates each subpopulation within the eye. A report on the research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“These results provide a first-of-its-kind framework for understanding different RPE cell subpopulations and their vulnerability to retinal diseases, and for developing targeted therapies to treat them,” said Michael F. Chiang, M.D., director of the NEI, part of the National Institutes of Health.

“The findings will help us develop more precise cell and gene therapies for specific degenerative eye diseases,” said the study’s lead investigator, Kapil Bharti, Ph.D., who directs the NEI Ocular and Stem Cell Translational Research Section.

The BA.2 omicron subvariant still remains the dominant COVID strain across the U.S., but another subvariant has gained momentum in recent days.

BA.2.12.1, which health officials say appears to be up to 27% more contagious than BA.2, accounts for approximately 36.5% of cases nationwide, according to the most recent CDC weekly numbers.

While BA.2 accounts for approximately 75% of all cases in the country, it is said to make up at least 70% of the cases in the healthcare region encompassing New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

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Not 6 million but 21 million.

And it has all happened because of a virus that caught the world unprepared.

The WHO report released today states that total deaths as reported by national health authorities attributable to COVID-19 don’t take into account excess mortality, or as it describes, “the mortality above what would be expected based on the non-crisis mortality rate.”

Continue reading “World Health Organization Acknowledges Undercounting of COVID-19 Deaths” »

The number of unexplained severe hepatitis cases in children continues to increase. Health agencies said there are currently 170 cases worldwide. One theory suggests the spread could be linked to adenovirus. Health officials are looking into whether Covid lockdowns could have played a role, with kids less exposed to common infections.