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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a health advisory recommending that select travelers to countries where a certain strain of mpox is endemic should be fully vaccinated prior to going. While the agency has already been advising vaccination for those travelling to countries where clade I mpox is endemic, the CDC’s guidance this issued week specifically advises that people who “anticipate certain sexual exposures” while in those countries should be fully vaccinated with two doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine. (Choi, 9/24)

President Biden on Tuesday announced new aid to try to stem the mpox epidemic in a valedictory address to the United Nations where he expressed optimism in the face of wars and other global challenges. Biden said the United States would give African countries $500 million to help prevent and respond to mpox and will donate 1 million doses of mpox vaccine. “Now we call on our partners to match our pledge and make this a billion-dollar commitment to the people of Africa,” Biden said in his speech. (Khalid, 9/24)

Bavarian Nordic has received an order worth $63 million from the U.S. government to produce additional bulk product and the final freeze-dried doses of its mpox and smallpox vaccine, Jynneos, it said on Tuesday. As per the contract, the Danish biotech company will manufacture 1 million freeze-dried vaccines to be delivered by 2026, it said. (9/24)

After the federal government ended its program for free COVID vaccines for uninsured Americans last month, California has extended its own version that will cover the cost of COVID vaccination for uninsured Californians through the end of the year. The federal Bridge Access Program, which was established in 2023 and was supposed to last until December 2024, ended in August after running out of funding — leaving millions of uninsured Americans facing out-of-pocket costs of up to $200 per shot, just as the updated 2024-25 COVID vaccine was getting rolled out. (Ho, 9/24)

A former New York City official who helped coordinate the city’s response to the pandemic was fired from his private-sector job after a recording showed him talking about attending a sex party and other private gatherings when the city was urging people to practice social distancing. Dr. Jay Varma was terminated from his position as executive vice president and chief medical officer at SIGA Technologies, the New York-based pharmaceutical company disclosed in a filing Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (Marcelo, 9/24)

More than a year after COVID-19 hospitalization, many patients have worse cognitive function than those who weren't hospitalized, a symptom that comes with reduced brain volume and brain injury markers on blood tests, according to a new study, the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom. (Schnirring, 9/24)

A bird flu outbreak is impacting California's dairy production. In the Central Valley, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) says 34 total dairy farms have had bird flu, otherwise known as H5-N1, infections in their dairy herds, and that number will go up. Dairy farmers like those at Dutra Farms in Manteca are working to keep the bird flu out. This farm has been affected by the outbreak. (Reynoso, 9/24)