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Evidence continues to mount that Covid isn’t the only viral illness that can lead to persistent and sometimes debilitating symptoms. Research published Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases finds that the flu virus may also have long-lasting effects on health. With the arrival of the pandemic and the resulting rash of long Covid cases, doctors had to rethink their ideas about viral infections, said senior study author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. (Carroll, 12/14)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday issued an alert urging healthcare providers to increase immunization coverage for influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The health regulator said that low vaccination rates, coupled with ongoing increases in respiratory disease activity, could lead to more severe disease and increased healthcare capacity strain in the coming weeks. (12/14)

The makers of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) immunization for infants that has been in tight supply will deliver an additional 230,000 doses in January, the White House said on Thursday, after U.S. government officials met with the companies to discuss meeting winter demand. According to a statement from one of the drug's makers - France's Sanofi - the additional supply means the companies will deliver 1.4 million doses of the drug in the U.S. this year, over 25% more shots than they had originally planned. (Hunnicutt and Erman, 12/14)

Today, researchers from Moderna and around the globe report positive phase 2/3 results for its experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for people 60 years and older, with an efficacy of 83.7% and a good safety profile. (Van Beusekom, 12/14)

Two new immune-evasive coronavirus variants are now responsible for more than half of the COVID-19 cases in the United States, contributing to a wave of infections just ahead of the holidays. ... The JN.1 variant, recently disaggregated from its parent BA.2.86. Accounting for 21.4% of new cases last week — almost triple the estimated 8% reported over Thanksgiving — JN.1 exhibits increased immunity evasion compared with earlier SARS-CoV-2 strains, according to a risk assessment from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Vaziri, 12/14)

New research published Wednesday and led by Boston scientists suggests a possible solution. Delivering vaccines directly to the lungs by using a device similar to an asthma inhaler can build up a far larger army of immune cells where it counts: in the breathing passages. That army can intercept and kill COVID-19 virus particles before they make us sick. In the study, detailed in the journal Nature, the team compared immune responses to vaccines delivered to the lungs with immune responses to vaccines delivered as shots to the muscles. (Piore, 12/14)

A meta-analysis of 12 studies shows that 30% of COVID-19 survivors have persistent symptoms 2 years after infection, the most common of which are fatigue, cognitive problems, and pain. For the study, published yesterday in the Journal of Infection, an international team led by a researcher from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, searched the literature for observational and case-control studies of long COVID 2 years after infection. The studies, published up to October 1, 2023, were from Europe, China, and the United States. (Van Beusekom, 12/14)

Dr. Mandy K. Cohen dropped by the Fox affiliate in Dallas in November, just days after the governor of Texas signed a law barring private employers from requiring Covid-19 shots. If she thought promoting vaccination would be a tough sell in a ruby-red state, Dr. Cohen, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not give any indication. “I’m not just the C.D.C. director, I’m also a mom,” she said cheerily, noting on live television that her daughters, 9 and 11, had already received the latest Covid and flu shots. She added, “So I wouldn’t recommend something for the American people I wouldn’t recommend for my own family.” (Stolberg, 12/15)

Though the 2022 mpox outbreak was primarily transmitted through sexual contact among men who have sex with men in the United States, close, nonsexual case contacts have contracted the virus, but data released today show that the risk is quite low. Another mpox study today showed that dose-sparing vaccine administration of the Jynneos vaccine appeared to have worked. (Soucheray, 12/14)

Due to globalization and climate change, insects and the diseases they carry are spreading more widely around the world. At a two-day workshop this week at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in Washington, D.C., global public health experts warned that countries like the U.S. are not ready for this looming threat. "If we don't do anything, which is basically what we're doing right now, it's going to get worse," Tom Scott, a medical entomologist and professor emeritus at UC Davis, said during the workshop. (Huang, 12/15)

Dengue is sweeping across the Western Hemisphere in numbers not seen since record-keeping began in 1980 as experts warn that rising temperatures and rapid urbanization are accelerating the pace of infections. (Coto, 12/13)