Category: Infection
USA: BA.2.12.1 is now the dominant Covid variant at 58% of sequences
The CDC has just updated its Covid variant tracker, and it shows that the BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariant has outcompeted BA.2, and is the dominant variant in the US, having been found in 57.9% of genome sequences. More...
ECDC: Quarantine Monkeypox patients AND their pets
A Monkeypox update from the ECDC in Europe today recommends quarantining Monkeypox patients AND their mammalian pets. More...
China: Beijing moves 1,800 residents into quarantine amid COVID-19 outbreak
Over 1,800 residents from Beijing’s Haidian district have been transferred to Zhangjiakou, one of the host cities of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, for centralized quarantine as the Chinese capital fights an arduous battle against the latest Omicron outbreak that has lasted for a month with over 1,500 infections reported. More...
Preprint: A possible explanation to hepatitis of unknown cause
“Our preliminary results raised a possibility that infection by SARS-CoV-2 ORF1abVVVNASN variant might elicit an autoimmune T cell response via epitope mimicry and is associated with the outbreak of unknown hepatitis. More...
North Korea: Nearly 3 million Covid cases so far
Pyongyang, May 23: According to information of the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters, more than 167,650 fevered persons (about 18,440 less than the previous day), over 267,630 recoveries (about 31,550 less than the previous day) and one death were reported from 18:00 of May 21 to 18:00 of May 22 throughout the country. More...
Research: The changing epidemiology of human monkeypox
“Using a structured format, we describe the greater than 10-fold increase in confirmed, probable, and/or possible monkeypox, cases over the past 5 decades, from 48 cases in the 1970s to 520 cases in the 1990s. More...
Monkeypox pandemic predicted in March 2021 to kill 270 million *1 Update*
In March 2021, NTI partnered with the Munich Security Conference to conduct a tabletop exercise on reducing high-consequence biological threats. More...
China: First Omicron BA.4 case reported
China has reported its first case of the Omicron BA.4 variant. More...
England: 420,000 children a month treated for mental health problems
More than 400,000 children and young people a month are being treated for mental health problems – the highest number on record – prompting warnings of an unprecedented crisis in the wellbeing of under-18s. More...
Preprint: Enhanced Fusogenicity of BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1
“We found that the new Omicron subvariants BA.4/5 and BA.2.12.1 were more resistant to neutralization by mRNA-vaccinated and boosted health care worker sera and Omicron-BA.1-wave patient sera than were the BA.1 and BA.2 variants.” More...