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AstraZeneca PLC released its flu vaccine nasal spray for at-home use on Friday, an option that comes at a contentious time for vaccine access in the US. FluMist Home is the same product as the pharmaceutical company’s seasonal influenza vaccine spray, which has been offered by clinicians for the past two decades. FluMist Home received approval for patients ages 2 and up from the US Food and Drug Administration last fall. (Nix, 8/15)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: It’s Almost Flu Season. Should You Still Get A Shot, And Will Insurance Cover It?

For parents of school-aged children, the fall to-do list can seem ever-growing. Buy school supplies. Fill out endless school forms. Block off parent-teacher nights. Do the kids’ tennis shoes still fit? Somewhere, at some point, you might remember flu shots. Get your flu shot. Get their flu shots. Or should you? Can you? Is that still a thing? Amid political chatter about vaccines and the government entities that oversee them, it’s understandable to wonder where all this leaves the 2025-26 flu vaccine. (Czopek, 8/18)

COVID-19 rates in the Southwestern United States reached 12.5% — the highest in the nation — according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this week. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County recorded the highest COVID levels in its wastewater since February. The spike, thanks to the new highly contagious “Stratus” variant, comes as students across California return to the classroom, now without a CDC recommendation that they receive updated COVID shots. That change in policy, pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been criticized by many public health experts. (Haggerty, 8/16)

The federal committee that would recommend the updated coronavirus vaccine is not expected to meet until at least mid-September, according to industry employees and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive information. By that point, the summer covid wave could be over, but Americans could still get a boost of immunity ahead of an expected winter wave. (Malhi, 8/16)

New survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that uptake of two vaccines routinely recommended for teens increased last year, while coverage with another recommended shot remained flat. The data from the 2024 National Immunization Survey-Teen, published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, show that, among 16,325 US adolescents aged 13 to 17 years, coverage with more than one dose of the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine increased from 89.0% in 2023 to 91.3% in 2024. (Dall, 8/15)

More than 10,000 cases, 18 of them fatal, have been reported across 10 countries in the Americas this year, with the pace of infections 34 times higher than a year ago, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said today, urging countries to step up their vaccination, surveillance, and outbreak responses. In a news release, PAHO said the outbreaks are mainly linked to low vaccination coverage, with 89% of cases occurring in people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. (Schnirring, 8/15)

Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in dozens of states and several countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park over the past few months. As of Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies. But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie for testing were probably only a small sample of the likely dozens that colonized the attic above the row of cabins, Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist said. (Govindarao and Gruver, 8/15)