Further adventures of the 2005-2006 flu season
Seems there's no end to the year's (mis)adventures with influenza. In the latest act of the drama, thousands of laboratories in the US and around the world last month received test kits for routine quality certification that, inexplicably, included samples of the H2N2 strain of Asian flu that killed 70,000 people in the US and 1 to 4 million worldwide in 1957 and 1958. Needless to say, news of the fiasco put the CDC and the World Health Organization into high gear, publicizing the dangers of an influenza pandemic in populations that are almost entirely unprotected against this strain, and arranging for labs that received the kits to destroy those samples.
Meanwhile, CDC Chief Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, hastened to reassure the public that the danger posed by the missent samples was exceedingly low, and that flu vaccine coverage levels for high-risk, priority groups was-despite the past season's shortages-similar to levels in years past.
CDC recommends nirsevimab be prioritized for highest-risk infants amid limited availability
October 26th 2023The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising providers to prioritize 100 mg doses of nirsevimab, a monoclonal antibody FDA-approved to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), for infants at the highest risk of severe RSV disease.
Navigating a complex case of pediatric COVID-19 with immunomodulatory therapies
October 21st 2023Eculizumab and anakinra should be considered in critically ill patients with severe infections that require immunomodulating therapies for life-threatening dysregulation, according to a poster session at the 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition.
