(SILVER SPRING, Md.) — Foods that claim to be “healthy” on their packaging will soon be subject to a new set of labeling guidelines, part of an effort by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to help educate consumers on nutrition literacy and align packaging language with current nutritional guidance.
The FDA announced the new rules on Wednesday.
The proposed update will ensure that food labels with “healthy” content claims are better aligned with current nutrition science, the updated Nutrition Facts label and the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
For example, foods like salmon, despite having higher fat content, can now be labeled as “healthy,” as it is a nutrient-dense food.
According to the FDA, “The proposed rule would update the ‘healthy’ claim definition to better account for how all the nutrients in various food groups contribute and may work synergistically to create healthy dietary patterns and improve health.”
“Diet-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, are the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S. and disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minority groups,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D., said in a statement on Wednesday. “Today’s action is an important step toward accomplishing a number of nutrition-related priorities, which include empowering consumers with information to choose healthier diets and establishing healthy eating habits early. It can also result in a healthier food supply.”
The moves by the FDA are part of a broader anti-hunger push from President Biden. The changes were announced ahead of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.
The FDA also plans move nutrition labels from the back to the front of a food package to help consumers “with lower nutrition literacy.”
The newly proposed rule on healthy labels is part of the agency’s ongoing commitment to help improve nutrition and dietary patterns for consumers to ultimately help reduce the burden of chronic disease and advance health equity.
According to the FDA, 80% of Americans don’t eat enough vegetables, fruit and dairy, and most consume too much added sugars, saturated fat and sodium.
“Nutrition is key to improving our nation’s health,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Healthy food can lower our risk for chronic disease. But too many people may not know what constitutes healthy food. FDA’s move will help educate more Americans to improve health outcomes, tackle health disparities and save lives.”
(NEW YORK) — The surge in children’s respiratory illnesses, including rhinovirus and enterovirus, is pushing pediatric emergency departments and health systems toward capacity in some parts of the country.
Infectious disease experts say they are seeing a higher-than-expected rate of certain pediatric infections other than COVID-19. There is no one reason for this uptick, but factors include time of the year and relaxed pandemic restrictions.
Hospitals across at least four states — Washington, Louisiana, New Jersey and Massachusetts — have told ABC News they are feeling this crush and expect things to worsen as the school year proceeds and winter approaches.
Seattle Children’s Hospital is “experiencing unprecedented Emergency Department (ED) volumes and inpatient census,” Dr. Tony Woodward, medical director of emergency medicine and Emergency Medicine Division chief at Seattle Children’s, told ABC News in a statement.
There has been a particular upward trend in respiratory viruses, along with the background of COVID-19 and other standard viruses, Woodward said, adding that he expects the coming RSV and flu season to further amplify the trend.
“While we’re still seeing some patients requiring hospitalization specifically with COVID-19, other respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses are making our patients sick,” Woodward said. “We are already seeing significant viral activity, which we expect to increase as kids are now back in school and the winter viral and flu season is approaching.”
Enteroviruses can cause respiratory illness ranging from mild — like a common cold — to severe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In rare instances, severe cases can cause illnesses like viral meningitis (infection of the covering of spinal cord and brain) or acute flaccid myelitis, a neurologic condition that can cause muscle weakness and paralysis.
RSV — or respiratory syncytial virus — can also cause mild, cold-like symptoms, and in severe cases, can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia, according to the CDC. “Most people recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious, especially for infants and older adults,” the CDC says.
Seattle Children’s is seeing more than double the number of respiratory visits associated with the rise in rhinovirus than they have at any time in the past year — statistically significant, Dr. Russell Migita, attending physician and a clinical leader of emergency services at Seattle Children’s Hospital, told ABC.
They’ve also seen an early rise in RSV, Migita said. “In typical years, RSV starts to rise in November and peaks in February. Last year, it started in August. This year, September/October.”
Woodward added that “wildfire smoke has also exacerbated respiratory and other health concerns for many children in the region.”
In response to the recent emergency department surges, Woodward said the hospital has increased physician staffing and opened additional beds.
In an advisory to pediatricians and hospitals shared with ABC News, the New Jersey Department of Health warned of increasing levels of enterovirus and rhinovirus activity earlier this month, and noted the state is seeing a similar “surge” like other parts of the country.
A spokesperson for the department said they are “monitoring and watching hospitalizations and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit census daily throughout the state,” adding that officials have planned a call with hospitals “to assess pediatric capacity” amid the surge.
Doctors at RWJ Barnabas Health System in New Jersey are seeing that upward trend in cases firsthand, where a wave of children’s enterovirus cases in recent weeks has pushed their pediatric ICUs to capacity, Dr. Uzma Hasan, division director of pediatric infectious disease at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, told ABC News.
“Approximately two weeks ago we started to see the numbers steadily rising, and the ICUs were starting to hit capacity with these kids coming in with respiratory symptoms,” Hasan said.
It has impacted asthmatic children and those with chronic lung disease particularly hard, but there have also been kids without any major underlying conditions who “seemed to have a pretty significant illness progress in a short period of time,” Hasan added.
Children with chronic lung disease, premature babies and kids with asthma are considered especially high risk. Families of kids with asthma should have an action plan with how to deal with an asthma exacerbation if they become ill, Hasan said.
With regards to capacity, Hasan noted that staff had been in communication with state officials “to figure out which sites have ICU beds available to make sure these kids coming into the ER setting are getting accommodated.”
One bittersweet silver lining of the pandemic, Hasan said, was how it had drilled hospitals and doctors on how to implement surge protocols and react to emergencies quickly, through COVID’s many intense waves — something has helped them handle the influx in respiratory cases of late. While hospitals are still understaffed and many doctors are grappling with burnout, they’ve been able to figure out ways to shuffle limited resources around where they’re needed most, and how to stay nimble with shifting beds, patients and staff around fast.
“I think one good thing that came out of COVID — if I can say that — is we’ve learned to plan ahead of the game,” Hasan said. “When we started seeing the numbers of patients showing up in the pediatric ERs rise and ICUs starting to fill up with kids, we got together pretty quickly to come up with a plan.”
Still, that plan could be threatened as the country heads deeper into fall, flu season, and RSV season — not to mention additional surges of COVID-19.
“The biggest worry is that we may see a concomitant rise in all these respiratory viruses — and whether we will be able to accommodate the kids who are coming in with severe respiratory symptoms,” Hasan told ABC. “We’re bracing ourselves for what’s next to come.”
Ochsner Health in Louisiana is also seeing an “influx” of children’s respiratory infections.
“Like other hospitals across the region and the country, Ochsner Health is currently experiencing an influx of viral pediatric respiratory illnesses,” Dr. William Lennarz, pediatrics system chair of Ochsner Health, told ABC News in a statement.
“Our Emergency Department volumes have seen an increase due to the flu virus and other normal seasonal respiratory viruses like RSV,” Lennarz said. “We are closely monitoring cases of respiratory illness and have a model in place to accommodate increased patient numbers and resources needed to care for these patients.”
The Boston area, meanwhile, has seen a similar spike in pediatric respiratory illnesses.
“Reduced population-wide immunity, the dropping of COVID mitigation efforts and increased mixing in schools and daycares is likely responsible for driving the surge in pediatric cases of acute respiratory illness both in our region and nationally,” Boston Children’s Hospital chief innovation officer and ABC News contributor Dr. John Brownstein said, adding the challenges of emergency department and inpatient capacity, alongside staff shortage, are “only adding more fuel to this fire.”
(ATLANTA) — The number of suicides increased in the United States in 2021 after two consecutive years of declines, new federal data finds.
In 2021, there were 47,646 suicides, according to provisional data featured in the report, published Friday morning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
This means there were about 14 suicides per 100,000 people.
The figure is a 4% rise from the 45,979 suicides that were recorded in 2020 and the rate of 13.5 per 100,000.
It comes after a 3.2% drop in suicides from 2018 to 2019 and a 1.7% drop from 2019 to 2020, the report found.
“Suicide is a major contributor to premature death in the United States,” the authors wrote. “In the United States, suicide increased 35% from 1999 to 2018 before declining by 5% through 2020.”
For the report, researchers looked at death certificate data from the NCHS as of May 15, 2022, looking at provisional data for 2021 and comparing it with final data for 2020 and earlier.
According to the report, the number of suicides per month in 2021 was only lower in January, February and July compared to 2020. For the other nine months, the number of suicides was higher.
The largest difference in monthly suicides occurred in October with an estimated 4,211 in 2021, which is an 11% increase from the 3,781 recorded in October 2020.
When looking at suicides broken down by sex, the number recorded for males in 2021 was 38,025, which is 4% higher than the 36,551 recorded in 2020.
Additionally, the rate of male suicides rose by 3% from 22.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 22.7 per 100,000 in 2021, the report found.
Although female suicides increased by 2% from 9,428 in 2020 to 9,621 in 2021, researchers found that the rate increase from 5.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 5.6 per 100,000 was not “statistically significant.
The report also found there were increases in suicide rates in nearly every age group.
Young adults saw the largest increase with 15-to-24-year-olds going from 14.2 suicides per 100,000 in 2020 to 15.3 per 100,000 in 2021.
Americans aged 35 to 44 had the second largest increase of 17.4 per 100,00 in 2020 to 18.2 per 100,000 in 2021.
The report did not go into explanations of why suicides increased, but studies have suggested the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in mental health challenges, particularly among children and teens, that may have led to a spike in suicides.
Researchers are also studying if there is a link between people with long COVID and higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(NEW YORK) — Hundreds of hospitals along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are at risk of flooding from hurricanes a new study finds, as Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida Wednesday as a Category 4 storm.
The study, published Thursday, found that even lower category storms carry a serious risk to medical centers along the coasts.
Researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston University School of Medicine and nonprofit research institute PSE Healthy Energy looked at 682 hospitals in 78 metropolitan areas within 10 miles from the coast.
This covers an area where 85 million people — or roughly one in four Americans — live. Researchers found that in 25 of the 78 metro areas, at least half of the hospitals are at risk of flooding from a Category 2 hurricane.
Additionally, because of the rise in sea levels caused by climate change, hospitals are at a 22% higher risk of flooding.
Dr. Aaron Bernstein, senior author of the study and interim director of the Harvard Chan Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, told ABC News that this is the first study to examine what would happen to health care systems if they got hit by a hurricane.
“I [looked at the] literature and found that there was no literature on what hurricanes would systematically do to access to health care on the Atlantic or Gulf Coasts,” he said. “There were papers showing the aftermath, so we have these studies after Katrina, after Sandy, after Harvey and those are very informative about what’s at stake here.”
He went on, “But no one had looked prospectively and said, ‘OK, at a systems level, how do hurricanes matter to the ability of hospitals to be functional and deliver care at a time when people may need them more than usual?'”
Five of the 10 metro areas — Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, North Port-Sarasota, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, and Jacksonville — will be tested by Ian.
The Sarasota area has the most hospitals at risk of flooding followed by the Fort Myers area.
Photos have been posted on social media of hospitals, such as Tampa General Hospital, preparing for storm surges from Hurricane Ian by building a flood barrier.
The other five metro areas include Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, New York-Newark-Jersey City, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, New Orleans-Metairie and Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington.
Additionally, the study found that even if hospitals themselves were not flooded, the roads around them may be, which could restrict or prevent access to care.
In 18 of the metro areas examined, at least half of all roads within one mile of hospitals were at risk of flooding due to a Category 2 hurricane.
“I think what our study underscores, and past experience does as well, is that while you could have a fully-functioning hospital in one part of a city, if you can’t get there because the roads are underwater, it’s not that helpful,” Bernstein said. “So, we need to think more systematically in our response to hurricanes. It requires a coordinated response in metro areas about knowing where beds are, knowing where staff is available, where supplies can be accessed, knowing where transportation is safe.”
Bernstein said the study gives an idea of which cities have hospitals that need to prepare against life-threatening flooding before it’s too late.
“Most hospitals have done very little [to prepare for hurricanes] because they don’t have the resources, which is understandable,” Bernstein said. “Health care is on the ropes after COVID. So you can imagine the idea of building protections against flooding is not necessarily top on the priority list.”
He continued, “With the risks of climate change, and hurricanes in particular, so grossly apparent, I don’t think anyone wants to look back and say, ‘Well, we let these people die.’ I think we need to use the knowledge we can glean, to take informed steps that balance costs with outcomes.”
(NEW YORK) — Twenty-year-old Charlie told ABC News’ Nightline that he’s lucky to be alive after he nearly became one of the thousands of people across the country who lost their lives to fentanyl.
The Southern California college student, who asked not to reveal his real name, was at a party in August when he thought he was taking a party drug, but it turned out to be the synthetic opioid. A friend was able to get help and quickly administered Narcan, a medicine used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, saving his life.
“Thank God that I was surrounded with the people that were there. Thank God my friends were there and thank God that I have smart friends,” Charlie told Nightline.
Charlie’s story is becoming all too common in America as parents, school officials and parents are scrambling to get ahead of the epidemic and prevent more deaths.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fentanyl was the leading cause of the record number of drug poisonings and overdose deaths in the country last year. More than 71,000 overdose deaths were linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the CDC.
Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have been on high alert, not only monitoring calls of overdoses but also stopping the flow of the drug into communities.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced it seized an estimated 10 million fentanyl-laced pills and 82 pounds of fentanyl powder motor crews across all 50 states.
“That is enough to kill 36 million Americans,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Tuesday.
Anne Milgram, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator, told reporters Tuesday that two Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC), “are responsible for virtually all of the fentanyl and they currently dominate the worldwide fentanyl distribution and supply chain.”
Another hurdle for authorities is brightly colored “rainbow fentanyl” pills that are the same as regular fentanyl but that could be mistaken for candy. They have been seized in at least 20 states since February, according to federal investigators.
Milgram added that agents are seeing fentanyl-laced pills disguised as regular drugs like OxyContin and Percocet.
Laura Brinker and Matt White, of San Diego, told Nightline that their 17-year-old son Connor White died last year from fentanyl poisoning when he thought he was taking Percocet.
“It was not a dozen pills in a bag. It was one pill…that was taken,” Brinker told Nightline.
Brinker and her husband called for more awareness and education about the crisis.
“There’s got to be other means and other ways that we’re educating our children and in a very, very serious way, not just don’t do drugs,” she said.
Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told Nightline that the crisis is getting worse in his schools.
“I cannot quantify it but I can tell it’s much bigger, much more disturbing than what’s reported,” he said of the fentanyl crisis in Los Angeles schools.
Two weeks, ago 15-year-old Melanie Ramos was found dead on the floor of the girls bathroom after school hours from a fentanyl overdose. A 15-year-old boy, who is being investigated for allegedly selling her synthetic opioid, was arrested in connection with her death.
Days after Ramos’ death, Carvalho announced that Narcan would be available at all K through 12 schools, and nurses and other staff will be trained on administering the drug.
“It’s a sad new reality but consider the alternative. I think the presence of Narcan in our schools is a life-saving necessity at this point,” he said.
In addition to the schools, non-profit groups have been hard at work spreading education on the dangers of fentanyl and providing tools to help prevent overdoses.
Madeline Hilliard, the founder of Team Awareness Combating Overdose (TACO), said her organization is also providing free test strips that can indicate if a drug is fentanyl in disguise. She said while there is some perception that the strips encourage more drug use, they save lives.
“What we see is when people use fentanyl test strips…they’re now aware that fentanyl is a risk,” Hilliard told Nightline.
Charlie, who is helping TACO with their awareness, said he too is urging young people to be cautious.
“It’s inevitable that college students are going to come across these drugs. It’s just becoming more and more integrated into drugs across the country,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — New — though limited — data released on Wednesday morning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that people who haven’t been vaccinated against monkeypox were 14 times more likely to get infected than vaccinated people.
The data is drawn from people who were eligible for a monkeypox vaccine in their states, which mostly includes men who have sex with men or people who have multiple sexual partners. The numbers provide the first sense of real-world effectiveness on the JYNNEOS vaccine, the leading inoculation against monkeypox.
“These new data provide us with a level of cautious optimism that the vaccine is working as intended,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing on monkeypox on Wednesday.
Dr. Demetre Daskalaskis, the monkeypox deputy response coordinator for the White House, urged people to share the “early good news.”
“This knowledge is power — and allows people to make more informed decisions about their health and build confidence in this important two dose vaccine,” he said.
Real-world data on the JYNNEOS vaccine, initially designed to fight smallpox, has been limited since the start of the current outbreak
The Food and Drug Administration, the CDC and National Institutes of Health have — largely at the behest of advocates in the LGBTQ community — launched many studies on the JYNNEOS vaccine’s safety and effectiveness since the outbreak began in May.
And though the new data is promising, Walensky also emphasized that it’s just a glimpse. There are still outstanding questions about the full breadth of JYNNEOS’ protection.
For example, the new efficacy rate of the vaccine was based on data gathered two weeks after the first vaccine, not after a full course of two shots, 28 days apart.
The CDC has yet to release data on efficacy after full vaccination, even though two shots is the consensus recommendation among federal public health officials.
“These early findings and similar results from studies in other countries suggest that even one dose of the monkeypox vaccine offers at least some initial protection against infection. That said, we know from laboratory studies that immune protection is highest two weeks after the second dose of vaccine,” Walensky said on Wednesday.
“And it is for that reason that we continue, even in light of these promising data, to strongly recommend people receive two doses of JYNNEOS vaccine spaced out 28 days apart to ensure durable, lasting immune protection against monkeypox,” she said.
More studies on efficacy after two shots are underway, Walensky said.
The CDC also has yet to differentiate the efficacy data between injection methods, which would provide further clarity on any potential differences between the new approach, where a smaller dose is injected just under the skin, and the original approach, where the injection was deeper.
It’s also not clear how much of a role behavioral changes might be playing in the data on the vaccine’s effectiveness.
If vaccinated people are reducing their sexual partners or chances for skin-to-skin contact, that could decrease their monkeypox infection rates, too.
Walensky pledged that more data is coming but that CDC is working to provide all the data it has in real time as soon as it is available — a lesson learned from COVID-19.
“[The] CDC will continue to evaluate how these vaccines are working in the current outbreak through a portfolio of vaccine effectiveness projects that will help us understand the level of protection provided and how long that protection lasts. And we will continue to deliver these data to you as soon as we have them,” Walensky said.
The CDC is also expanding eligibility for monkeypox vaccines to include more at-risk Americans — though the JYNNEOS vaccine is still not recommended for the general population.
The expansion now includes gay or bisexual men who have had one partner in the last six months or received a new diagnosis of one or more sexually transmitted diseases in the last six months. It also includes sex workers.
Though many states and jurisdictions have already expanded eligibility, the CDC’s latest move puts it in closer alignment with local guidance.
(NEW YORK) — When COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, some women reported changes in the timing and length of their menstrual cycles after getting vaccinated.
Now, nearly two years later, a global study has confirmed that COVID-19 vaccination can lead to temporary changes in cycle length for some people.
The study, published in the medical journal BMJ, looked at nearly 20,000 women around the world who self-reported their menstrual cycle through Natural Cycles, an FDA-cleared birth control app.
Study participants who were vaccinated reported, on average, a nearly one-day day increase in the length of their menstrual cycle length after receiving their first COVID vaccine shot, and a half-day increase after receiving their second dose.
Participants who received both vaccine doses in a single menstrual cycle had a nearly four-day increase in cycle length
The study found, like other research has also shown, that the changes to cycle length are only temporary and do not have any long-term effects.
Earlier this year, a smaller study of around 4,000 women found similar results, reporting that a normal menstrual cycle returned within one or two months after getting vaccinated.
The two studies were launched thanks in part to the persistence of women who spoke out on social media and documented their side effects in an online database created by two researchers.
Several months later, in August 2021, the National Institutes of Health announced it was committing $1.6 million in funding to launch studies on the subject at five universities across the country.
Dr. Alison Edelman, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicines, told ABC News earlier this year the research is important because it can help affirm women’s anecdotal experiences and let them know what to expect after getting vaccinated.
“On a personal level, any noticeable change to a person’s cycle — whether it be related to vaccination or other environmental stressors — can indeed feel significant,” said Edelman, a lead researcher on the two studies released so far. “As a clinician, I can help provide them with information about what to expect with vaccination, which might include a slight variation in their cycle length and have them prepared for this possibility so that they do not need to worry.”
Menstrual changes are controlled by a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, along with the ovaries, which use hormones as signals. These hormone signals can be disrupted when the body goes through changes that occur with an infection and even a vaccine.
Getting vaccinated produces a strong immune system response in the days following the shot, which may cause temporary changes to menstrual cycles. Studies have also documented temporary menstrual cycle changes among women who get COVID-19 infections.
Temporary changes to the menstrual cycle should not be a concern for women, experts say. Changes lasting “three months consecutively, or more” are when health care providers typically make investigation or treatment plans, Dr. Jessica Shepherd, OBGYN and chief medical officer at Verywell Health, told ABC News last year.
Edelman and other experts say the findings that COVID vaccination can temporarily affect menstrual cycles do not mean the vaccine impacts current or future fertility.
In February, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said there was “no evidence” that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 impairs fertility.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman and Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Citing concerns about the lingering and sometimes debilitating long-term impacts of COVID-19 on the body — and observed inequities amongst minority patients suffering disproportionately from the virus — medical experts on “long COVID” issued the first guidance of its kind to diagnose and treat the mysterious illness.
Experts at the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation said they hope the guidance will help other doctors leverage their experience with patients to help address and mitigate their symptoms.
The guidance is indicative of widespread concern among medical experts that even months after resolving the initial infection, COVID is still causing serious health concerns amongst many Americans. At least 9 million long COVID patients are grappling with a range of symptoms, but experts said that number could be as high as 28 million people.
“When we recognized that long COVID, this new problem was developing due to the pandemic, we really felt an obligation to come forth and try to address it as best as we could,” Dr. Steven Flanagan, American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation president-elect said at a reporter roundtable Tuesday ahead of the guidance release. “We recognized two years ago, this is a problem.”
A priority in addressing long COVID is to “recognize, assess and treat” the symptoms across a wide range of medical disciplines, including cardiovascular and pulmonary to neurologic, cognitive and gastrointestinal care, experts said.
Dr. Alba Azola, the lead author of the autonomic dysfunction guidance statement and member of the Johns Hopkins Post-Acute COVID-19 Team, said the medical community will need to tailor individual rehab protocols for each patient’s unique needs.
“As the pandemic has continued, more people of all ages have contracted COVID-19, and the number of children potentially impacted by long COVID has also increased,” Dr. Amanda Morrow, of Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Pediatric Post-COVID-19 Rehabilitation Clinic and lead author of the pediatric statement, said at the Tuesday media briefing.
The most common long COVID symptoms children experience are fatigue and attention problems, ongoing fever, headaches, sleep issues, and new mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Older, female children may be at an increased risk of developing long COVID, Morrow said.
Symptoms, management and rehabilitation for long COVID differ for children and adults, the experts said. Moreover, parsing out a long COVID diagnosis from other potential medical problems is not easy, since long COVID can involve so many of the body’s systems.
“Parents, caregivers, teachers and coaches are the frontline in observing changes and children that may be related to long COVID,” Morrow said.
“Children generally have fewer preexisting conditions than adults, so long COVID symptoms should be considered relative to the prior acute COVID illness,” Morrow said. “Young children and children with disabilities may have difficulty describing their symptoms, so it’s really important to try to tease that out during the medical interview.”
ABC News asked how the new guidance will ensure marginalized communities get the attention they need. Making information about long COVID more accessible is a first step, the experts said, but it can’t be the last.
“The Academy has been concerned about health equity, and we certainly want everybody to have access to the care that they need,” Flanagan said. Though there is currently legislation aimed at supporting resources in underserved communities, “there is more to be done, and we are not there yet.”
“This is a real significant issue,” Azola said. “I think it’s just the preponderance of Caucasian females in our cohorts of patients that are being treated at long COVID clinics is a reflection of the limited patient access to medical care in the United States, directly.”
“We know that there are people out there, probably debilitated, suffering from long COVID symptoms, that are not even aware about long COVID, or that there’s actually something that can be done to help them,” Azola said.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
This is a 50% drop from the seven-day rolling average of 394 recorded one month ago, the data shows.
Similar situations are occurring in cities across the U.S. In New York City — the epicenter of the outbreak — the seven-day average of infections has declined by 85.7% over the course of a month from 35 to five, as of Sept. 23, according to data from the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News there are two reasons why monkeypox infections are trending downward.
One reason is that at-risk people have changed their behaviors.
The outbreak has primarily been concentrated in men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary, although health officials have said anyone — regardless of sexual orientation — is at risk if they have direct contact with an infected patient.
Schaffner said those at risk have been inundated with information about how to reduce their risk and have followed doctors’ advice.
“There’s been a terrific amount of public health education that’s gone out and it’s gone out particularly to the MSM community and the LBGTQ community that’s been primarily affected,” he said. “So, you have a target population, they’ve been literally flooded, in some instances, with information about monkeypox, and what you as an individual can do to protect yourself against becoming infected.”
Schaffner added, “And so a lot of the communication I think, has been successful. And here’s the inferential part, I think people may have altered some of their behaviors, to reduce their risk.”
A joint survey from the CDC, Emory University and Johns Hopkins University found about one-half of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men reduced their number of sexual partners, one-time anonymous partners, and reduced use of dating apps.
The second reason for the decline is vaccinations, Schaffner said.
As of Sept. 20, more than 684,000 JYNNEOS vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S., CDC data shows. As of the week ending Sept. 10, the number of second doses administered are more than the number of first doses, meaning people are returning to receive full protection.
Last month, to increase the number of doses available, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a new strategy to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin — allowing one vial of vaccine to be administered as five separate doses rather than a single dose.
“We had data that told us it would be as effective and that appears also to be working,” Schaffner said. “[There’s been] acceptance of the vaccine by people in the target population and we’ve developed the capacity to get it out, make it available easily without stigma.”
However, Schaffner said the battle is not over yet and there should be a sustained effort on the part of public health officials, clinicians and community leaders to keep spreading information on the seriousness of monkeypox and how to reduce risk as well as how to get vaccinated.
“This will require sustained attention for some time,” he said. “It’s wonderful that things look as though they’re plateauing and declining, but we have to keep attention on wherever this disease is, and we have to keep our public health and communications efforts out there.”
“It’s not ‘mission accomplished.’ We have to keep being careful and take advantage of the vaccine,” Schaffner added.
(WITCHITA FALLS, TX) — A Texas mom is speaking out after her daughter died earlier this month following a suspected opioid overdose. Experts involved in the case believe that fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, might be to blame.
Silvia Martinez of Wichita Falls, Texas, told “Good Morning America” that she wanted to share what happened to her eldest daughter Alizé Martinez to potentially save other children and prevent other families from experiencing what she and her family are going through.
Silvia Martinez said that on the morning of Sept. 17 — which she described as the “worst day” of her life — she found her daughter stiff and lifeless in bed.
“I just screamed. I was in so much shock. It just didn’t feel real because I was like, ‘Not my daughter, not my baby,’ ” she recalled. “God knew I couldn’t live without my kids. I couldn’t believe it.”
She said that although she had not yet received an official report, the medical examiner said they suspect the death of Alizé Martinez was possibly the result of a fentanyl overdose.
Alizé Martinez, the eldest of Silvia Martinez’s five children, was 19 and about to re-enroll in cosmetology school. Silvia Martinez said her daughter had a “super goofy personality” and was “always happy” but had been “struggling” with addiction, something she had been trying to help her through.
“I didn’t know this until it was further down the line but when she first tried [opioids], she did it as a party favor, because her friends were doing it,” Silvia Martinez told “GMA.”
“She thought she was taking a prescription drug that gets prescribed to people from doctors. so to her, that her friends were doing it, well, it comes from a doctor so you know, should be OK on that and not knowing that it was laced with fentanyl,” Martinez continued.
Experts warn that people should never take medication that is not specifically prescribed to them and should always precisely follow prescription instructions provided by their doctor.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is anywhere from 50 to 100 times more potent than the narcotics heroin and morphine. Synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths have increased 56% from 2019 through 2020, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the public health agency estimates that more than 150 people die from synthetic opioids each day. Naloxone is a medication that can reverse the effects of opioids, and can help someone who has overdosed on opioids.
Alizé Martinez’s funeral was held on Sept. 22, according to her mother, and the police department in Wichita Falls, a city in northern Texas, is currently investigating her death.
A spokesperson for the Wichita Falls Police Department confirmed in an email to “GMA” that officials were indeed investigating “three suspected fentanyl related fatal overdoses,” including that of “a 19-year-old female” whom they identified as Alizé Martinez.
The spokesperson also noted police had “made three arrests for the charge of Murder … for illegally distributing Fentanyl which caused the death of an individual.”
Silvia Martinez hopes that despite her family’s tragedy, she can raise more awareness about the dangers of street drugs, including opioids and specifically fentanyl.
“The most shocking part was how available it is,” she said. “A lot of these pills are looking like candy. And now we don’t even want to take our kids trick or treating this year … because we are terrified that our kids are going to get something like that in one of their bags.”
“As parents, we need to talk to our children about this drug, about how it’s going around everywhere,” she added.
Silvia Martinez’s message to other parents, meanwhile, is to speak up if they suspect their kids are taking drugs.
“Don’t be ashamed. Don’t be embarrassed. Speak out,” she said. “Let other people hear your voices because we need to be the voices for our children.”
“We need to get the drugs off the street,” she added. “We need more resources for our children who are struggling with this. We need all the voices we can: every mother, every father, anybody who struggles with this fentanyl addiction. We need more voices. We need to make a change for our kids. I don’t want to see any more lives gone due to this.”
If someone you know is experiencing signs or symptoms of an overdose, call 911 or immediately present to the nearest emergency department. The national poison control hotline is available for questions 24/7 at 1-800-222-1222.
If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, you can call the SAMHSA help line at 1-800-662-HELP. SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service.
