Health

US approves Covid vaccines for youngest kids

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US health authorities on Saturday cleared the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for children aged five and younger, in a move President Joe Biden greeted as a “monumental step” in the fight against the virus. The United States thus became the first country to approve use of the so-called mRNA vaccines for children as young as six months. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had on Friday authorized their […]

US approves Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for youngest children

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization Friday for the use of Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines in the youngest children, the final age group awaiting immunization in most countries. The agency, whose approval is considered the global gold standard, authorized Moderna’s two-dose vaccine for children aged six months to five years, and three doses of Pfizer’s shots for those between six months and four years old. […]

Hunger crisis could swell already record global displacement: UN

by Christophe Vogt  Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement numbers above 100 million for the first time, and the UN warns the resulting hunger crisis could force many more to flee their homes. Efforts to address the global food insecurity crisis, which has been dramatically aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is “of paramount importance… to prevent a larger number of people moving,” the United Nations refugee […]

Over 14% of world has had Lyme disease: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — More than 14 percent of the world’s population has had Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness, according to a major review of the available research published on Tuesday. Central Europe had the highest rate of infection with 20 percent, while men over the age of 50 living in rural areas were most at risk, the study in the journal BMJ Global Health found. The condition is rarely fatal, but people […]

The age of outbreaks: Experts warn of more animal disease threats

  by Daniel Lawler and Isabelle Tourne Agence France Presse With the spread of monkeypox across the world coming hot on the heels of Covid-19, there are fears that increasing outbreaks of diseases that jump from animals to humans could spark another pandemic. While such diseases — called zoonoses — have been around for millennia, they have become more common in recent decades due to deforestation, mass livestock cultivation, climate change and other human-induced upheavals […]

Brazil confirms its first monkeypox case

  BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil has confirmed its first case of monkeypox in a 41-year-old man who had traveled to Europe, the health ministry announced Thursday. Monkeypox is a rare disease generally confined to western and central Africa. It is related to but less severe than smallpox, causing a rash that spreads, fever, chills, and aches, among other symptoms. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already registered nearly 1,000 cases of the illness in […]

Monkeypox outbreak tops 1,000 cases, WHO warns of ‘real’ risk

The risk of monkeypox becoming established in non-endemic nations is real, the WHO warned Wednesday, with more than a thousand cases now confirmed in such countries. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN health agency was not recommending mass vaccination against the virus, and added that no deaths had been reported so far from the outbreaks. “The risk of monkeypox becoming established in non-endemic countries is real,” Tedros told a press conference. […]

WHO: 780 monkeypox outbreak cases

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization said Sunday that 780 laboratory-confirmed monkeypox cases had been reported to it from 27 non-endemic countries, while maintaining that the global risk level was moderate. The WHO said the 780 figure, for cases from May 13 to Thursday, was probably an underestimate due to limited epidemiological and laboratory information. “It is highly likely that other countries will identify cases and there will be further spread of the […]

More than 700 monkeypox cases globally, 21 in US: CDC

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday it was aware of more than 700 global cases of monkeypox, including 21 in the United States, with investigations now suggesting it is spreading inside the country. Sixteen of the first 17 cases were among people who identify as men who have sex with men, according to a new CDC report, and 14 were thought to be travel […]

Estimated 2 million have long Covid in UK: official data

  LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — An estimated two million people in the UK, which represents around three percent of the population, have reported experiencing so-called long Covid, official statistics showed Wednesday. Around 1.4 million of them said they first had Covid-19, or suspected they had the virus, at least 12 weeks previously, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It also found 826,000 of them first had coronavirus at least a year earlier, […]

Monkeypox cases could be ‘peak of iceberg’: WHO

  GENEVA, Switzzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization cautioned Friday that some 200 monkeypox cases found in recent weeks outside of countries where the virus usually circulates could be just the beginning. “We don’t know if we are just seeing the peak of the iceberg,” Sylvie Briand, WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention chief, acknowledged in a briefing to countries on the “unusual” spread of the virus. Since Britain first reported a confirmed […]

More than 200 cases of monkeypox worldwide: EU disease agency

  STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AFP) — The number of confirmed cases of monkeypox worldwide has reached 219 outside of countries where it is endemic, according to an update released by the European Union’s disease agency. More than a dozen countries where monkeypox is unusual, mostly in Europe, have reported at least one confirmed case, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in an epidemiological note released Wednesday night. “This is the first time […]