Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CDC: Hospitals Treating Patients For Flu Should Also Test Swiftly For H5N1
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory Thursday urging health-care workers treating patients hospitalized with the flu to perform an additional test for bird flu within 24 hours of admission. The advisory reflects increasing concern about the widening outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza that is sickening more people and animals in the United States and Canada. (Sun, 1/16)
By the time the 13-year-old arrived at the main children’s hospital in Vancouver, Canada, in early November, a bird flu infection had robbed her ability to breathe. Pneumonia shrouded her left lung. Her kidneys were failing, her blood platelets plummeting. Within four days, the previously healthy teen, whose initial symptoms were pink eye and a low-grade fever, had deteriorated so dramatically that doctors at BC Children’s Hospital had to deploy a battery of medical interventions to save her life. (Sun, 1/17)
On covid, flu, and Zika —
Dartmouth Health will no longer require someone to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before receiving a kidney transplant, after the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office intervened on behalf of a patient. The Attorney General’s Office said the health system changed its policy after state officials raised concerns it could violate state law. The law at issue, passed in 2022, forbids health care providers from denying care to patients based solely on vaccination status. (Cuno-Booth, 1/16)
Data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Health shows flu activity continuing to soar. In the Twin Cities seven-county region 537 people were admitted to the hospital Dec. 29 to Jan. 4. That is by far the highest weekly total of the last four seasons. (Helmstetter, 1/16)
Two recent studies, including one published today in Pediatrics, show that exposure to the Zika virus (ZIKV) in utero can have affect children's development later in childhood, with today's study showing the finding holds true even when the children are born without signs of congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). The study in Pediatrics is based on outcomes seen in Brazil among mother-infant pairs from 2018 to 2022. The children were assessed for early (congenital anomalies) and long-term adverse outcomes (neurodevelopmental delay), and the study included children with and without CZS, which is a group of birth defects associated with the disease. (Soucheray, 1/16)
