Maternal COVID vaccination during pregnancy provides 52% protection against COVID-19 hospitalization in infants but only 38% protection against Omicron hospitalization, according to a study yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Protection against an intensive care unit (ICU) stay, however, was 70%.
Flu vaccination rates fell 4.5 percentage points (from 43.7% to 39.2%) in states with below-average COVID-19 vaccination.
Electronic algorithms developed by an antibiotic stewardship team at the University of Pennsylvania were highly accurate in detecting inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for bronchitis and pharyngitis, scientists reported yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.
Flu levels are up sharply in some Australian states, putting pressure on healthcare systems that are also coping with ongoing COVID-19 activity and prompting more efforts to get more people vaccinated against flu.
The rate of full COVID-19 vaccination among employees of a private Minnesota medical device manufacturer rose 10.4 percentage points after the company began offering $1,000 incentives for immunization, finds a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said COVID-19 vaccine uptake among children 5 to 11 years old in the United States remained low during the first 11 weeks of vaccine eligibility, especially in high social vulnerability index (SVI) areas. The research was published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
World Health Organization (WHO) flu vaccine strain selection advisors met this week to recommend the strains to include for the Northern Hemisphere's 2022-2023 flu season, swapping out the components for the H3N2 and influenza B Victoria lineage strains.
Mortality rates among children born with congenital Zika syndrome up to 3 years of age were more than 11 times higher than those without Zika, researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A large multistate cohort study of more than 40,000 pregnant women and their nonpregnant peers found no link between COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy and preterm or small-for-gestational-age births.
United States flu activity jumped again the week ending Dec 18, with eight states reporting high or very high activity and the first two pediatric flu deaths reported for the season, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its regular update.