The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) says it is strengthening genomic surveillance in the Americas, including the Caribbean, as representatives from 17 public health laboratories in the region came together this week for the 26th edition of the Viral Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology (VEME) course in Panama. On Friday, the health organization said the training – which it organized in … [Read more...]
Epidemiology, not geopolitics, should guide COVID-19 vaccine donations
With COVID-19 vaccine supplies shifting from scarcity to abundance in high-income settings, such as Canada, the EU, the USA, and the UK, the June 11–13, 2021, Group of Seven (G7) summit in Cornwall, UK, is the time when leaders from those countries should act on their promises to send surplus COVID-19 vaccine supplies to the many other countries where doses remain scarce. Vaccine donations are … [Read more...]
The interplay between COVID-19 restrictions and vaccination
An intervention is only as effective as the extent to which people are willing to adopt recommended measures. One obstacle to the success of COVID-19 interventions, especially in the USA, has been the politicisation of control measures, including the adoption of masks and physical distancing. Interplay between acceptance of non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination shapes local transmission … [Read more...]
Anticipating outcomes for patients with COVID-19 and identifying prognosis patterns
Since its first description, SARS-CoV-2 has been the subject of more than 59 000 publications worldwide. Although SARS-CoV-2 infection mainly results in mild disease, during the first COVID-19 wave in France, up to 3% of patients required admission to hospital, 0·8% required intensive care unit admission, and overall mortality was reported to be around 0·5%. The ability to predict disease … [Read more...]