According to US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf on Thursday, the US administration is thinking about changing the way doctors administer the monkeypox vaccination to maximize the amount of stock on hand.
On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a state of emergency in response to the quickly growing monkeypox outbreak, becoming the third state in America to do so.
The World Health Organization has declared the growing monkeypox outbreak the ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’-the highest alert level. The designation means that the WHO now sees monkeypox as an important enough threat to global health that a coordinated international response is required to prevent the further spreading of the virus and its escalation into a pandemic.
Reports of MonkeyPox are multiplying around the world and the United States. Worldwide, there have been over 10,000 cases reported of viral illness, including more than 1,400 in the U.S. alone. And so far, mass vaccination efforts in early hot spots like New York City have been stymied by website crashes and low supply.
Researchers successfully transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two recently deceased people connected to ventilators, the New York University team announced on July 12, 2022. The surgeries were the latest step forward in the field of animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, which has seen a flurry of successes so far this year — raising hopes for a new, steady supply of organs to ease shortages.
Researchers developed a new type of pain relief that involves wrapping a small strip of material around nerves to prevent them from sending pain signals to the brain. If this prototype passes all necessary safety and experimental tests, it could one day replace toxic opioids for patients suffering from chronic pain.
Traditional face masks, including N95s and KN95s, offer protection against illness and infection but must be disposed of once they come in contact with viruses, thus generating significant plastic waste. So now, researchers have developed a simple method that would give N95 face masks antiviral and antibacterial properties, which could allow them to be worn for longer durations.
Researchers investigating the genetic make-up of the MonkeyPox virus have said the virus appears to have mutated far, far more than would normally be expected and has undergone a period of “accelerated evolution”. So far 50 new mutations of the MonkeyPox Virus have been found.
When SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infiltrates the body, it typically enters through the nose or mouth, then takes root and begins replicating. But what if it could never get a foothold in the upper airways and stopped by just inhaling a few drops of liquid or mist beforehand? That’s the idea behind nasal COVID-19 vaccines, which are meant to prevent infection by blocking the virus at its point of entry.
An experimental cancer-killing virus has been administered to a human patient for the first time, with hopes the testing will ultimately reveal evidence of a new means of successfully fighting cancer tumors in people’s bodies. The drug candidate, called CF33-hNIS (aka Vaxinia), is what’s called an oncolytic virus, a genetically modified virus designed to selectively infect and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.
Nine people have died in Congo while Nigeria has recorded its first death from the latest MonkeyPox outbreak this year, even as at least 23 countries continue to grapple with the sudden spread of the disease. In its statement on Sunday, the World Health Organization said that the MonkeyPox virus has been spread to 23 non-endemic countries now, and there has so far been a cumulative total of 257 laboratory-confirmed cases and around 120 suspected cases.
If you thought the COVID-19 outbreak was over and now it’s time to relax about health safety measure, think again. A new virus called the Monkeypox is spreading rapidly through the US, Europe, and Australia.
