Mpox

[Danraft]

It is hard to tell how significant this developing situation will be, but the good news is that it appears that the information aspect of managing disinformation is being handles at it’s inception.
https://www.statnews.com/2022/05/24/in ... hallenges/

Since becoming Google’s first chief health officer in 2019, DeSalvo has overseen many disparate programs, ranging from AI-enabled diagnostics to patient records. But increasingly, as the tech giant has rethought some of its biggest aims in health, losing a longtime executive and dissolving its dedicated health-focused division, her focus has shifted to consumers.

Since the start of the pandemic — and the dust storm of misinformation it kicked up — the company has focused on how to assure people get the best and most accurate information. So when a virus not often seen outside of Africa recently started spreading in the U.S. and Europe, Google had a playbook.

“Monkeypox comes on the scene, the first thing that comes into my mind is OK, well, what are the myths and the harmful things that might begin to perpetuate that we want to look for?” she said in an interview with STAT Executive Editor Rick Berke at the STAT Health Tech Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The playbook developed over Covid-19 included several measures to push Googlers in the right direction: Putting a box up with content from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or a local health department; algorithmically pushing sites with misinformation or harmful treatments to the bottom; displaying buttons that show vaccine side effects or vaccination sites.

It also included teaming with influencers on YouTube — the video site is also owned by Google — to reach people who might not listen to an official from the National Institutes of Health.

Monkeypox, she said, was so unusual to see in Europe and the U.S. that little content was available to promote. “So let’s start thinking about what does the CDC or the WHO or anyone else already have? And then how can we start to work to get better good information?” she said.

On Tuesday, a Google search of “monkeypox” turned up articles from CNN, the Associated Press and the Washington Post, among others, followed by a drop-down menu answering common questions with paragraphs from the CDC, World Health Organization or health-focused websites.

Although seemingly smaller in ambition than previous efforts to transform electronic health records or aging, these consumer and search-oriented efforts can be a crucial tool in creating a more equitable healthcare system, DeSalvo argued.

“Information is a determinant of health,” said DeSalvo, a physician who previously served as New Orleans Health Commissioner and a top health official in the Obama administration. “So people coming online to understand, what is diabetes? Where can I get care? These are all important.”

[Volkonski]

[RTH10260]

U.S. Could Have Had Many More Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine This Year
The Department of Health and Human Services delayed asking the manufacturer to process the bulk vaccine the government already owned into vials.

By Sharon LaFraniere, Noah Weiland and Joseph Goldstein
Aug. 3, 2022

WASHINGTON — The shortage of vaccines to combat a fast-growing monkeypox outbreak was caused in part because the Department of Health and Human Services failed early on to ask that bulk stocks of the vaccine it already owned be bottled for distribution, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the matter.

By the time the federal government placed its orders, the vaccine’s Denmark-based manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, had booked other clients and was unable to do the work for months, officials said — even though the federal government had invested well over $1 billion in the vaccine’s development.

The government is now distributing about 1.1 million doses, less than a third of the 3.5 million that health officials now estimate are needed to fight the outbreak. It does not expect the next delivery, of half a million doses, until October. Most of the other 5.5 million doses the United States has ordered are not scheduled to be delivered until next year, according to the federal health agency.

To speed up deliveries, the government is scrambling to find another firm to take over some of the bottling, capping and labeling of frozen bulk vaccine that is being stored in large plastic bags at Bavarian Nordic’s headquarters outside Copenhagen. Because that final manufacturing phase, known as fill and finish, is highly specialized, experts estimate it will take another company at least three months to gear up. Negotiations are ongoing with Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing, a Michigan factory that has helped produce Covid-19 vaccines, to bottle 2.5 million of the doses now on order, hopefully shaving months off the timetable, according to people familiar with the situation.

Health and Human Services officials so miscalculated the need that on May 23, they allowed Bavarian Nordic to deliver about 215,000 fully finished doses that the federal government had already bought to European countries instead of holding them for the United States.

At the time, the nation had only eight confirmed monkeypox cases, agency officials said. And it could not have used those doses immediately because the Food and Drug Administration had not yet certified the plant where the vaccine, Jynneos, was poured into vials.

But it could now. Some states are trying to stretch out doses by giving recipients only one shot of the two-dose vaccine. California, Illinois and New York have declared public health emergencies. In New York City, every available slot for a monkeypox shot is taken.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/us/p ... es-us.html

[Lani]

Up to 12 cases today in Hawaii, mostly related to traveling to the mainland and infecting their families. There doesn't seem to be much concern about it - yet. However, I've noticed that more workers are wearing masks again. In addition to monkey pox, covid continues to cause stores and offices to shut down early.

[keith]

Hmmm. I was under the impression that smallpox vaccination lasted 'forever'. Maybe that's not so.

If you previously got a smallpox vaccine does it provide protection against monkeypox?

[RTH10260]

[MN-Skeptic]

WHO declares mpox outbreak a global health emergency

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the ongoing mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency.

WHO convened its emergency mpox committee amid concerns that a deadlier strain of the virus, clade Ib, had reached four previously unaffected provinces in Africa. This strain had previously been contained to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Independent experts on the committee met virtually Wednesday to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the severity of the outbreak. After that consultation, he announced Wednesday that he had declared a public health emergency of international concern — the highest level of alarm under international health law.

Also known as PHEIC, this is a status given by WHO to “extraordinary events” that pose a public health risk to other countries through the international spread of disease. These outbreaks may require a coordinated international response, according to the organization.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak a public health emergency of continental security the day before — the first such declaration by the agency since its inception in 2017.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 17,000 cases and more than 500 deaths have been reported in 13 countries in Africa, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which classifies the outbreak as a “very high risk event.” The highest number of cases — more than 14,000 — is in the DRC, which reported 96% of confirmed cases this month.

[RTH10260]

Mpox: Sweden confirms first case of ‘more grave’ variant outside Africa
Clade I case comes after World Health Organization declares a global public health emergency

Guardian staff and agencies in Stockholm
Fri 16 Aug 2024 06.46 CEST

Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside Africa.

The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease, Olivia Wigzell, director-general at the Swedish public health agency, told a press conference.

Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, after an outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to other countries.

Wigzell said the person who had been infected had received care and instructions in line with the health agency’s recommendations.

China announced Friday it would begin screening people and goods entering the country for mpox over the next six months.

People travelling from countries where virus outbreaks have occurred, who have been in contact with mpox cases or display symptoms should “take the initiative to declare to customs when entering the country”, China’s customs administration said in a statement.

Vehicles, containers and items from areas with mpox cases should also be sanitised, the statement added.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... ase-sweden

[Foggy]

!	Message from: Foggy
	Danraft isn't around, so I changed the title.