WHO weighs in on Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant; US extends COVID health emergency CIDRAP

The World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group on virus evolution said the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant is poised to drive an increase in COVID-19 cases, but it cautioned that confidence in its assessment is low, because most of the information is based on data from just one country—the United States.

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Mpox has faded in the US. Who deserves the credit? NEW YORK (AP) — Less than six months ago, mpox was an exploding health crisis. What had been an obscure disease from Africa was ripping through European and U.S. gay communities. Precious doses of an unproven vaccine were in short supply. AP NEWS

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So who deserves the credit? It’s an unsettled question, but experts cite a combination of factors.

Bivalent COVID vaccines have now been in use for a few months—here's how they're stacking up against omicron Vaccines have played a major role in mitigating the harms of the COVID pandemic since their rollout began just over two years ago. They're estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives across the ... Neil Mabbott

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Will America’s public health reckoning ever come? Despite the many failures of our Covid response, very little about U.S. pandemic infrastructure has changed. But some are still working to find compromise reforms. Rachel Cohrs STAT

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Virtually everyone generally agrees some kind of transformative public health reform is needed — Republicans, Democrats, and the public health agencies themselves. But they disagree on how to go about changes. It doesn’t help that Congress couldn’t agree on putting together a commission to examine the pandemic response.

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What's standing in the way of wastewater data becoming a more mainstream public health tool When case counts suggest Covid-19 is in check, the truth is in the toilets. Brittany Trang STAT

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Some newly mailed COVID tests from the government expire imminently — even with extensions Nora Boydstun is diligent about checking expiration dates. YahooNews

...Some of the newly delivered iHealth tests from COVID.gov expire in the next month or so, according to their extended dates. It’s not clear how many such tests were distributed.

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U.S. extends public health emergency status for COVID The U.S. health department on Wednesday extended the COVID-19 pandemic's status as a public health emergency, allowing millions of Americans to continue receiving free tests, vaccines and treatments. Ahmed Aboulenein Reuters

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Uganda declares itself Ebola-free after swiftly turning tide on outbreak Uganda on Wednesday declared the end of a nearly four-month Ebola outbreak that it briefly struggled to contain but was then able to swiftly bring under control despite the absence of a proven vaccine against the viral strain in question. Elias Biryabarema Reuters

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The latest outbreak killed 55 of the 143 people infected since September, according to health ministry figures. Six of the fatalities were health workers.

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'Cold-like' symptoms could indicate you have the XBB.1.5 Covid variant - what to look for Symptoms of the XBB.1.15, or Kraken, variant of COVID-19 have so far been reported as similar to those of Omicron. MSN

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The sub-variant of Omicron has now been identified in 70 countries, including the UK.

Global COVID vaccine acceptance rose 5% from 2021 to 2022 CIDRAP

COVID-19 vaccine acceptance climbed from 75% in 2021 to 79% in 2022 in 23 countries representing nearly 60% of the global population, finds a survey published yesterday in Nature Medicine.

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In eight countries, however, vaccine hesitancy increased (range, 1.0% in the United Kingdom to 21.1% in South Africa). And nearly 1 in 8 of all respondents (12.1%), particularly those aged 18 to 29 years, said they were hesitant to receive a booster dose (range, 1.1% in China to 28.9% in Russia).

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