Helen Branswell
‘Racist overtones’: Renaming ’monkeypox’ runs into headwinds
Since the earliest days of the current global monkeypox outbreak, scientists and public health authorities have been calling for the ...
With global smallpox vaccine supplies in short supply, monkeypox may no longer be containable
It has been a mere nine weeks since the United Kingdom announced it had detected four cases of monkeypox, a ...
Is monkeypox the next global viral scourge?
Monkeypox, a disease that rarely shows up outside a belt of countries across Central and West Africa, has exploded into ...
Why FDA efforts to get children under 5 vaccinated are raising questions among COVID-fighting medical professionals
The Food and Drug Administration’s willingness to consider authorizing a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for children under ...
Will annual COVID boosters become a necessity? Experts are divided
With the world facing the latest in a seemingly endless stream of coronavirus variants — and with bullish talk from ...
COVID shot grab bag? Here’s what we know about mixing Pfizer, J&J, and Moderna vaccines
So does getting a dose of Pfizer vaccine after getting a single dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine trigger production ...
‘COVID vaccines are wondrous weapons, but they aren’t impenetrable armor’
When Covid-19 vaccines were reported last fall to be roughly 95% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections, the world rejoiced ...
History documents hundreds of pandemics over the ages. Understanding how they ended could provide us a roadmap going forward
How did [pandemics of the past] end? The viruses didn’t go away; a descendent of the Spanish flu virus, the ...
Now there are two: Modern’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine 94.5% successful, joins Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration in targeting pandemic
The Moderna vaccine reduced the risk of Covid-19 infection by 94.5%. There were 95 cases of infection among patients who ...
US and China buck WHO-backed global effort to expand access to COVID vaccine
Countries representing about 64% of the world population have signed up to expand global access to Covid-19 vaccines by funding ...
Assessing Operation Warp Speed: What’s working, what’s not
Is [Operation Warp Speed] working? Roughly five months after top U.S. health officials coalesced around the idea of a public-private ...
Life with the pandemic: 4 ways our bodies might respond to new COVID waves
[Coronavirus researcher Vineet] Menachery laid out four possible scenarios for how humans might interact with SARS-2 over time — in ...
What can be done – short of another lockdown – to corral COVID?
The virus suppression gains earned through the painful societal shutdowns of March, April, and May — the flattened epidemiological curves ...
COVID-19 vaccines unlikely to be ‘cure-alls’. That might not be such a bad thing
With a little luck and a lot of science, the world might in the not-too-distant future get vaccines against Covid-19 ...
COVID-19 hit the US as early as January, CDC analysis suggests
How early did local transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus begin in the United States? For the second time [recently], scientists ...
There will be no vaccine widely available by fall (or anytime soon) even with a miracle breakthrough
Vaccines to prevent Covid-19 infection are hurtling through development at speeds never before seen. But mounting promises that some vaccine ...
Some countries have done a much better job fighting the coronavirus. Here’s what worked.
With Europe and the United States locked in deadly battle with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a number of countries ...
Rapid genetic sequencing marks key step in China’s efforts to contain mysterious new viral outbreak
Chinese scientists have recovered a previously unknown virus from an infected individual and generated a full genetic sequence of it, ...
Two promising Ebola drugs ‘dramatically reduced’ risk of dying from disease
Final data from a landmark clinical trial of four Ebola therapies conducted in the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the ...
Things to know about flu shots, including whether it’s too soon to get one
Three years ago, STAT laid out some of the questions surrounding flu vaccination in an article you can find here. Lots ...
This winter’s flu vaccine may not be ‘optimally protective’. We could be in for a rough season.
Twice a year influenza experts meet at the World Health Organization to pore over surveillance data provided by countries around ...
Switching to a new polio vaccine was supposed to be a step forward. Now some experts suggest going back
Three years ago, the leaders of the international campaign to eradicate polio pulled off a landmark feat, phasing out a problematic ...
Gates Foundation awards $12 million to teams hunting for universal flu vaccine
Scientific teams from inside and outside the world of influenza research have been awarded funding to try to unlock mysteries ...
We’ve almost eradicated Polio. But recent measles outbreaks show us why the battle isn’t over.
[T]he polio campaign must push on across the finish line. Failure to do so could have dire consequences. ... For ...
Genetic sequencing of 50-year-old tissue sample boosts theory that HIV emerged 100 years ago
For more than 50 years, the RNA remained hidden in a lymph node that had been snipped out of a ...
Creating a synthetic version of the Ebola virus to help fight the real thing
Scientists at the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention have created a synthetic version of the Ebola virus circulating in ...
Deadly superbug Candida auris is wreaking havoc in hospitals. Where’s the research money needed to stop it?
In the universe of scary drug-resistant pathogens that can kill, Candida auris is having a moment. The freaky fungus, which ...
Undervaccinated US population adds tinder for blaze of measles outbreaks
U.S. health officials are putting all they have into extinguishing measles outbreaks, many of them raging in cities throughout the ...
