(NEW YORK) — The percentage of teenagers who were up to date on their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines has fallen dramatically since 2020, according to new federal data released Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends children from ages 11 to 12 receive two doses of the HPV vaccine, given six to 12 months apart, although children can get the vaccine starting at age 9.
Anybody under age 26 can get the HPV vaccine if they have not been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. People ages 15 to 26 years old who have not received the HPV vaccine typically need three doses to be fully vaccinated.
The CDC’s report looked at data from the 2023 National Immunization Survey -Teen, a group of phone surveys used to monitor vaccination coverage among teenagers. Similar ones are conducted for children and adults.
The survey looked at trends in coverage by birth year, and trends in coverage by eligibility for the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, a federally funded program that provides vaccines to children whose parents or guardians may not be able to afford them.
The program found that vaccination coverage for vaccines including tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine (Tdap), as well as for the meningococcal ACWY vaccine, was generally stable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, there was a notable decrease in the percentage of adolescents who were up to date with HPV vaccination by age 13 among those born in 2010 — who would have turned 13 in 2023 — compared with those born in 2007, who would have turned 13 in 2020.
For teens who were born in 2007, 52.8% of those who were not eligible for VFC were up to date on their HPV vaccines by age 13. By comparison, only 48.7% of non-eligible teens born in 2010 were up to date by age 13.
Among teens born in 2007 who were VFC eligible, 53% were up to date by age 13. However, only 42.7% of eligible teens born in 2010 were up to date by age 13.
“The decline in the percentage of VFC- eligible adolescents who are HPV [up to date] could signal a change in accessibility to vaccination through the VFC program, a change that needs further exploration,” the report read. “This possibility under-scores the importance of ongoing efforts to ensure equitable access to vaccination services for all children and adolescents.”
Overall, 2023 coverage was similar to 2022, with 76.8% of all teens between ages 13 and 17 receiving at least one dose of the HPV vaccine compared to 76.0% in 2022, the report found.
However, only 61.4% of all teenagers in this age group were updated on their HPV vaccines, down from 64.6% in 2022.
HPV is a very common STI that infects about 13 million Americans each year, according to the CDC. Nearly everyone will contract HPV at some point in their lives, the CDC says.
There are more than 100 types of HPV, and most HPV infections clear up on their own within two years.
About 10% of infections last longer and can put individuals at risk for some cancers including cervix, vaginal and vulvar cancer; penile cancer; anal cancer; and oropharyngeal cancer, which is a cancer of the back of the throat, according to the CDC.
Every year, HPV causes about 37,000 cases of cancer in both men and women in the U.S., according to the federal health agency. However, HPV vaccination can prevent more than 90% of HPV cancers when given at the recommended ages, according to the American Cancer Society.
“Health care providers should make strong recommendations for all routine vaccines and verify if adolescents, particularly those eligible for the VFC program, are up to date with all recommended vaccines,” the report stated.
(NEW YORK) — A new study of common baby foods sampled from grocery stores in the United States found that roughly two-thirds did not meet standards for healthy baby food set by the World Health Organization.
Researchers who led the study, published Wednesday in the journal Nutrients, said parents should be aware that although more convenient, packaged baby food should be eaten in moderation.
When possible financially and practically, kids’ diets should consist of whole foods, including grains, fruits and vegetables.
For the study, researchers looked at data on more than 600 infant and toddler food products sold in the top 10 grocery store chains in the U.S.
The products analyzed are intended for children ages 6 to 36 months, according to the study.
Of the more than 600 products, 70% did not meet protein requirements set by the WHO, and 25% failed to meet calorie recommendations.
When it came to sugar content, 44% of products exceeded sugar requirements and 74% contained added sugar or sweeteners, according to the study.
In addition, the study found that all of the products had at least one claim on their packaging that did not meet WHO standards.
Products that came in snack-size packaging were found by researchers to have the lowest nutritional compliance.
“These findings highlight that urgent work is needed to improve the nutritional quality of commercially produced infant and toddler foods in the United States,” the researchers wrote.
Emphasis on fresh, whole foods for kids
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that caregivers start to introduce solid foods to infants around 6 months of age.
Infants and toddlers should have no added sugars in their diets, including in drinks, according to the USDA.
As with adults, it’s important that kids eat a variety of foods, with an emphasis on foods that are non-processed.
For grains, the USDA recommends that parents and caregivers look closely at ingredient lists for words like “whole wheat flour” and “whole grain.”
Vegetables are important to vary and can be served to toddlers and infants in a variety of ways, including roasted, steamed or mashed, according to the USDA.
Fruits can be served to infants and toddlers fresh, frozen or canned, but should also include no added sugar, according to the USDA.
USDA guidelines also say foods high in sodium should be limited for infants and toddlers.
(NEW YORK) — Children with long COVID-19 may show different symptoms depending on their age, a new study suggests.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA, is the first looking at how long COVID affects children and teens from the National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded RECOVER initiative, which seeks to better understand, diagnose, prevent and treat the condition.
Among younger children, between ages 6 and 11, headache was the primary symptom followed by trouble with memory, focus and sleep, as well as stomach pain.
Teens and pre-teens between ages 12 and 17 tended to report more fatigue-related symptoms, such as daytime sleepiness or low energy, body aches and pains, and neurological symptoms, including headaches and difficulty with memory and focus. This age group was also more likely to experience changes in taste or smell.
“We really wanted to understand how does long COVID look different across the ages?” Dr. Rachel Gross, lead study author and a general pediatrician and clinical researcher at NYU Langone Health, told ABC News.
Study participants were recruited from more than 60 U.S. health care and community settings between March 2022 and December 2023, with children between ages 6 and 17 with and without previous COVID-19 infection.
“We know that children are changing over time, we know that they’re growing over time, that they’re developing, that their immune system may be changing, that their hormones may be changing. So, we weren’t surprised that we were seeing differences across these different age groups,” Gross said. “But next steps, we really need to understand why this is happening so we can understand the underlying mechanisms that may be related to these differences.”
Gross said most of what researchers know about long COVID comes from studies of adults, and this is one of the first studies to characterize what prolonged symptoms children may be experiencing. She said much more long COVID research needs to focus on children.
“There have been many misperceptions about COVID and children, even since the beginning of the pandemic,” she said. “There was a common misperception that children didn’t get COVID infections, and we know that’s not true. And now there’s a common misperception that children don’t develop long COVID, and we know from studies like this and others that that is not true, and that long COVID in children is not a rare condition.”
‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong’
Gabrielle “Gabby” Jospa, from Plainview, New York, is one of many children who knows all too well that children can, and do, develop long COVID.
The now 15-year-old contracted COVID-19 in December 2021. At first, she thought it was just a cold or a less severe virus. However, she developed severe symptoms including a high fever, fast heart rate, nausea, body aches, stomachache and falling oxygen levels that required a visit to the emergency room, Gabby told ABC News.
Once the initial symptoms were gone, there were many lingering after-effects. Gabby’s pulse and oxygen levels improved but not to where they were pre-COVID, according to her mother, Amy Jospa, and they knew something was wrong.
Gabby started experiencing fatigue and brain fog, and developed swollen joints, unexplained rashes and even postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that causes the heart to beat faster than normal when transitioning from sitting or lying down to standing, Amy Jospa told ABC News.
Gabby also has a history of migraines, experiencing them about once a year, but they worsened after COVID-19 to once per week and then once per day. They visited several doctors, none of whom could figure out what was wrong.
“The doctors will just tell you like — and it’s not the doctor’s fault — ‘Oh, it’s just a cold’ or ‘Oh, I’ll just give you headache medicine’ but it doesn’t go away, and you’re starting to feel after a while, after seeing a million doctors, like ‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. It’s hopeless,'” Gabby told ABC News.
In September 2023, with some help from Gabby’s cardiologist getting her the right series of tests, Gabby was diagnosed with long COVID. Gabby said she was “excited” more than upset to finally have a proper diagnosis.
Gabby and her mother tried to enroll in several long COVID studies at hospitals but she was rejected before she was accepted into the RECOVER study at NYU Langone, and had her first in-person visit in November 2023.
They say the RECOVER study has been helpful in terms of helping Gabby improve and better manage her long COVID symptoms.
“The RECOVER study also doesn’t include just medical testing,” Amy Jospa said. “They do cognitive testing on her, and it’s helped Gabby feel more normal and less stigmatized about the process, because she’s not the only one with brain fog. Like, ‘I have this; it stinks, but I’m not alone, and there are people who are working really hard to figure this out and get me to where I need to be.’ It’s like positive change, and I think that’s been the nicest part, seeing the shift mentally for her.”
Gabby and her mother say she’s still not 100% back to where she was before COVID. Before contracting COVID, Gabby, who swims competitively, used to be able to swim for 45 minutes straight. Now, she physically exhausts more easily so she needs breaks.
Amy Jospa said they made modifications to Gabby’s gym schedule at school and that Gabby has more time between classes because she can’t rush in the hallways between classes.
“I still manage, even though there are struggles,” Gabby said. “I managed to find a way to make it work so I can keep going mentally as well as physically.”
ABC News’ Dr. Kierstin Luber contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The number of births declined in the United States in 2023, ending two years of upticks during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new federal report.
A report published early Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics showed there were 3,596,017 babies born in 2023.
This is a decrease of 2% from the 3,667,758 babies born in 2022 and the 3,664,292 babies born in 2021.
The drop in births follows trends seen between 2014 and 2019, when births were declining by an average of 1% per year, and by 4% from 2019 to 2020. The number of births increased in 2021 and 2022, but the latter was not viewed as statistically significant, according to the new report.
Additionally, the report found the general fertility rate for women between ages 15 and 44 was 54.5 births per 1,000 women, a decrease of 3% from 56.0 in 2022 and 56.3 in 2021.
This also follows trends seen in the last decade when fertility rates dropped 2% per year on average from 2014 to 2019 and fell by 4% from 2019 to 2020.
“Since the most recent high in 2007, the number of births has declined 17%, and the general fertility rate has declined 21%,” according to the report.
The report did not provide reasons for the decrease in births, but fertility has trended downward on and off since the 1970s and has been on a steady decline since the Great Recession of 2008-09, according to the non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Studies have examined what may have led to a small baby boom in 2021 and 2022 and say it could be due to more flexibility with remote work or families having children that put the decision off during the first year of the pandemic.
The report also found the percentage of pregnant people receiving prenatal care beginning in the first trimester declined for the second year in a row in 2023.
Prenatal care beginning in the first trimester fell 1% in 2023 to 76.1% from 77.0% in 2022, which follows a 2% decline seen from 2021 to 2022.
What’s more, the percentage of those who did not receive any prenatal care increased 5% in 2023 to 2.3% from 2.2% in 2022. This follows a 5% drop from 2021 to 2022, the report found.
Prenatal care helps protect the health of the pregnant person and the baby. Babies born who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to have a low birth weight and five times more likely to die than those born to those who do get care, according to the Office on Women’s Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
While the number of pre-term infants was essentially unchanged between 2022 and 2023, the percentage of infants born early-term, meaning born between 37 weeks and 39 weeks, rose 2% from 2022 to 2023 while the percentage of full-term births declined by 1% over the same period.
The report included positive news including a decline in the birth rate for teenagers. The rate for teenagers between ages 15 and 19 declined 4% from 2022 to 2023, from 13.6 births per 1,000 to 13.1 births, and was down 6% from 2021.
(NEW YORK) — The catalyst for drinking less, or not at all, is unique for each individual but can range from physical health reasons to mental clarity. But whatever the motivation, the ‘sober curious’ movement is becoming more mainstream, especially among young adults.
The topic and trend was recently highlighted on the newest season of Emily in Paris, in which the title character explains that mostly Gen Z and millennials who adopt a wellness approach to their relationship with alcohol, though perhaps not fully sober, have started to explore not drinking.
“You might not be 100% sober, but you are interested in drinking less,” Hilary Sheinbaum, author of the Going Dry workbook and guide to drinking less, told Good Morning America.
A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2020 found that alcohol abstinence is becoming increasingly common among Gen Z, with 28% of college students reporting in 2018 that they did not drink alcohol, compared to 20% of respondents in 2002.
Alcohol-free alternatives have become even more accessible in recent years, as GMA first reported in 2022 as we emerged from the pandemic and the market was booming with new options, from nonalcoholic spiritless retail shops to more accommodating high-quality booze-free options outside of the traditional sugary mocktails.
“There are nonalcoholic beers, wines, and [non-alcoholic] spirits on restaurant and bar menus, even at hotels and resorts, and now in airplanes and even airline lounges. They are everywhere,” Sheinbaum said.
One Dallas-based content creator, Avon Nguyen, told GMA that cutting back on alcohol has also helped her financially.
“If I’m going to choose between drinking a $22 drink or paying rent, I’m probably gonna pay rent,” she explained.
Fitness influencer Kendall Toole, a former Peloton instructor turned podcast host, told GMA she’s seen positive improvements in her physical and mental health since she departed from drinking.
“The most notable shifts that I’ve seen on my health were one, the ability to get deep, restful sleep – [and two], my anxiety was not as profound and as adamant as it was previous.”
Unlike celebrities or athletes bottling tequilas, whiskey or other booze, Toole – who’s been open about her passion for wellness and mental health – opted to plant her flag in a clean energy and protein beverage, Don’t Quit, that better reflects her own journey and values.
For others looking to switch up what they sip and start dipping their toe into the sober curious journey, Sheinbaum emphasized how easy it is to do at home.
“One household item that is easy to mix with for a mocktail is orange juice,” she said. “You can make non-alcoholic mimosas with orange juice and non-alcoholic sparkling wine. It’s as easy as that.”
Check out these bartender-approved recipes to make more delicious, spirit-free sips for your next night in or sober soiree.
(WASHINGTON) When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, there was a key provision that the Biden administration fought hard for. For years, private insurance companies negotiated with drug makers over prescription prices.
However, Medicare, representing 50 million seniors, did not have the same right to negotiate prices for its Part D coverage. This meant that Medicare basically had to accept the prices offered to them.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joined “Start Here,” ABC News’ flagship daily news podcast, earlier this year to announce that negotiations were starting. They had selected 10 medications to prioritize and attempt to bargain down prices.
On Thursday, during the first public event held by President Biden and Vice President Harris since the Biden dropped out of the presidential race, they revealed that they had agreed on all issues. This is being described as a significant development for anyone on Medicare, and for anyone who pays taxes to fund the expenses of Medicare.
Secretary Becerra joined “Start Here” on Friday to discuss this further.
START HERE: Mr. Secretary, last time we spoke you had just identified the drugs…they included some diabetes drugs, some arthritis medications, treatments for blood clots and blood cancer. Where are we now?
BECERRA: We are done with the negotiation, Brad. We have completed 10 drugs. Every company joined in the negotiations. We had offers, counter offers, and we hit a sweet spot with all ten. And that sweet spot will save Americans on Medicare who need these drugs lots of money. And it will save taxpayers who help fund the Medicare program lots of money, in the billions.
START HERE: Yeah. How much of a discount are we talking about here?
BECERRA: So in some cases, the discount from the list price is up to 79%. I think the lowest discount is about 38%. And I do want to caveat that a bit. Very rarely does anybody pay list price for anything. And if you do, take it back and bargain a bit. Whether it’s that car at the dealership where you look at list price, you don’t pay that. When you go to the department store, you try to find everything you can on sale or, you know at some point it’s going to go on sale.
And so everybody makes the effort to try to get the best price for whatever the product is. In this case, it’s a very important product, it’s your prescription medication. But you should still be able to get a good price, and that’s what we did. We negotiated and got a much better price than what Medicare was getting.
START HERE: But just so we can we can be clear about that caveat. You’re saying it’s 68%, say it’s like 79% less than the list price. But you guys weren’t paying the list price earlier. Can you tell us how much you were paying on these drugs beforehand, and how much the new discount you’ve gotten is?
BECERRA: Yeah. And that’s where it gets a little dicey because there are lots of nooks and crannies in the health care system. Some of them include what are, what is considered proprietary information of the companies, the drug companies, that they don’t want disclosed. And so the net price that Medicare pays is lower than the list price, but still high.
START HERE: So there’s some contract somewhere being like “You guys, no one can disclose what you guys had originally been paying.”
BECERRA: Yeah. We can’t, we can’t take you behind the curtain unless the drug companies tell us it’s okay to do so.
START HERE: Were you able to actually push back against these drug companies, or was it kind of like “We’ll ask once and then we’ll have to take what we get. We’re not going to risk not giving Americans these, these drugs.”
BECERRA: Well, let’s just say that when they came in with their offer or counteroffer, the final price was neither our initial offer nor their official offer. But here’s what I will tell you. The Congressional Budget Office, which is Congress’ budget estimator, they’re the ones that keep tabs of what legislation will cost — will it save money or will it cost taxpayers money? And they are very stingy when it comes to saying “Oh, taxpayers will save money.” Right?
Well, the Congressional Budget Office said with regard to the Inflation Reduction Act and prescription drug negotiation, they said, we believe in the first year of negotiation — which we just finished — in that first year, and they’re projecting because they didn’t know which drugs it would be, etc.. They said, we believe the Department of Health Human Services will save $3.7 billion. Well, we’ve saved $6 billion.
And on top of that, we’re saving people out of pocket another billion and a half. But here’s the kicker. They said over 10 years, they assume that this new law, over 10 years of negotiating, will save $100 billion. So if we’re already almost double their first estimate for their first year, I guarantee you we’re going to do better than the 100 billion, over 10 years.
START HERE: Okay. When do the new prices go into effect, then I guess?
BECERRA: Jan. 1, 2026.
START HERE: Okay, so when that kicks in, how much of a discount will average Medicare patients actually see? Because, like, if you guys scored a 68% discount on Farxiga, like the diabetes kidney medication, does that mean that the person using that drug is going to pay, it doesn’t mean they’re going to pay 68% less. I mean, how much less would it be?
BECERRA: Yeah. So remember, and that’s also a difficult question because seniors don’t typically pay very much for their prescription medication. Medicare the program, that’s the beauty of Medicare, it covers the lion’s share of the cost of those drugs. Some Americans still have to pay some out-of-pocket costs for their drugs, especially the higher cost drugs. So we’re going to save folks quite a bit of money.
Let’s put it this way: I can talk to you in total aggregate terms. We can now look at the price that we negotiated and say “Okay, if we had this price back in 2023, what would our cost have been?” And the result is we would have saved $6 billion to the health care program, and Americans will be able to save about a billion and a half dollars collectively in their out-of-pocket costs.
START HERE: The trade group that represents companies like Pfizer, Lilly, Merck, they’ve said we might not see as much innovation because we’re not getting as much money. That’s, that’s constantly been sort of a critique of this. They also say that your math makes assumptions about how many people truly save money on this. They say a very small amount of people actually get this Part D plan in the way that would actually save the money here. What is your response to to to these pharmaceutical groups?
BECERRA: Well, remember, they’re more than 50 million Americans who have prescription coverage under Medicare, the Part D program. There are about 9 million people in the Medicare program who use one of these 10 drugs. It’s not a small universe of people. And these are very expensive drugs. When you can bring the price down of a drug that’s listed for, say, $10,000, $12,000 to $3,000. That’s a pretty good deal. It’s still $3,000, but it sure saved you a ton of money. If you were paid $12,000 or 13,000 before that.
And so this will save not just the Medicare program money, but it will save Medicare beneficiaries money. And it certainly will pay taxpayers who today, when they work, have some of their money from their paycheck taken out so they could cover their Medicare investment into the future so that when they get turned 65, they can qualify. They will get to benefit from a strengthened Medicare program that will have those new resources available, because we didn’t have to spend it at, for overcharging us for the prescription medication.
START HERE: Well, so now, I mean, the idea is that you’ll negotiate more drug prices, right? So you got these 10 out of the way. What are the next 10 or the next 20, or do you guys have a sense of what types of drugs you’re looking to target?
BECERRA: Yeah. And here I have to be careful, because everything we say about a drug can move the price on the market. Right? And I don’t want to be accused of trying to influence the price up or down. And so what I can tell you is the statute, the new law, the Inflation Reduction Act, gave a pretty clear prescription of how to select these, set of drugs that will be negotiated. That’s a, it’s a good thing in the way, in a sense that it doesn’t let politics enter into this. It was pretty clear which drugs count. In this case, the first 10, they had to be the most expensive drugs in the Medicare system.
START HERE: All right. So then we’ll see what happens next. All right. Secretary Xavier Becerra, thank you so much.
(NEW YORK) — Cases of whooping cough are more than three times higher this year than they were at the same time last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
So far this year, there have been 10,865 recorded cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, compared to the 2,918 recorded during the same time in 2023, CDC data shows.
The number of cases is closer to the 8,271 cases of whooping cough recorded this time in 2019, indicating a return to pre-pandemic levels.
Doctors said that reported cases of whooping cough were lower than usual over the past few years, likely due to COVID-19 mitigation measures including masking, remote learning and social distancing.
“During the pandemic itself, we really had a low point in transmission of pertussis, and that was just because of all of the social distancing and isolation,” Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told ABC News. “If kids aren’t around each other, and also around adults, then they’re not able to pick up the disease, since it’s an infectious disease and transmitted from one person to another.”
“So, I think, we’re just getting back up there because people are back doing the normal things that we do, and that’s just the pattern that we see with the vaccine that we have. But I will say, without the vaccine, we’d see a whole lot more pertussis than 10,000 cases,” he added.
Dr. Lori Handy, an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the uptick in cases of whooping cough post-pandemic is similar to those seen in the U.S. with other diseases as mitigation measures started to disappear.
“I honestly think it was a little surprising that it took this long, recognizing we lifted [many] measures close to two years ago,” she told ABC News. “I think many folks remember the increase in RSV cases that we saw back in 2022, so this has lagged behind some other respiratory infections, but definitely now has resurfaced and looks very typical to 2019.”
Whooping cough is a very contagious respiratory illness caused by a type of bacteria called Bordetella pertussis.
These bacteria attach to the cilia — the tiny, hair-like structures found on the surface of some cells –of the upper respiratory system that help clear mucous and other debris in the airway, and release toxins. The toxins damage the cilia and cause the upper airways to swell, according to the CDC.
“You get airway swelling and a terrible, terrible cough because the cilia aren’t working, and so your body resorts to coughing to try to keep stuff out of the lungs and to bring things up,” Patrick said. “Oftentimes, babies will have a little bit difficulty breathing. They’re having the cough…and then they take a big, deep breath, because they hadn’t breathed during all those coughs, and that’s why it’s called whooping cough, because that’s the [sound] when they’re coughing.”
Whooping cough is spread from person-to-person through coughing and sneezing. Infected people can be contagious for weeks without knowing they have whooping cough.
Early symptoms often resemble a common cold — runny nose, cough and low-grade fever — and typically last for one to two weeks. Symptoms, however, can progress to rapid, violent coughing fits that can last up to 12 weeks.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics and receiving treatment early can reduce the severity of the infection. Most whooping cough symptoms can be managed at home, according to the CDC.
Although anyone can contract pertussis, infants under age one, pregnant women and immunocompromised people are at highest risk for severe illness.
“In the younger kids, and especially in infants, they can have apnea, so they stop breathing. They can be hospitalized in the intensive care unit, and unfortunately, children can and have died from pertussis,” Dr. Robert Frenck, a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, told ABC News. “So, these are not innocuous infections. They can be very serious, and they can be deadly.”
A vaccine for whooping cough was introduced in the late 1940s and the number of cases each year has since dropped dramatically, decreasing more than 90% compared to the pre-vaccine era.
Before the vaccine, there were an estimated 200,000 cases annually among children and up to 9,000 children died, according to the CDC.
There are two types of vaccines currently used to protect against whooping cough: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine for babies and children younger age 7 and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccines for older children, adults and pregnant women.
A recent report from the CDC found that exemptions for routine childhood vaccination among kindergartners during the 2022-23 school year were at the highest level ever, including for the DTaP vaccine. Frenck said the increase in whooping cough cases are a reminder that vaccines are effective, but said he doesn’t discourage vaccine-hesitant patents from asking questions.
“Parents want to do what’s best for their children, and so they want to keep their children healthy,” he said. “Unfortunately, there has been a fair amount of misinformation about vaccines to where people are confused. So, my recommendation really is to talk with your health care provider, ask your questions, get your answers, feel comfortable about having your children vaccinated. Vaccines are well-tested, vaccines are safe, vaccines are protective.”
Handy said she also encourages everybody who is eligible to get vaccinated and for health care providers to be on the lookout for pertussis cases
“For health care providers … recognize this is back, like five years ago, and the only way we will detect it is by testing it and then using our public health measures to prevent spread,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — The spread of a newer strain of mpox in Africa led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the disease a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on Wednesday.
This newer strain is believed to be behind an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with more than 14,000 cases — mostly among children — and more than 500 deaths, and has been detected in neighboring countries that had never reported countries of mpox before.
On Thursday, Sweden became the first nation outside of the African continent to report a case of the newer strain of mpox, according to the country’s public health agency.
Cases of other strains, or clades, of mpox have popped up in other countries. In the U.S., there are more than 1,600 cases reported this year so far, more than twice the number seen at this time last year but not as many as seen during the outbreak in 2022-23.
“It’s clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Experts told ABC News that by declaring a PHEIC, the WHO can help more countries collaborate by sharing data, allocating resources and helping make vaccines more readily available.
What is a PHEIC?
A PHEIC is defined as “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response,” by the International Health Regulations.
To be considered a PHEIC, the condition is considered, serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected; has implications for public health beyond where the place it originates; and has the potential to require immediate international action, according to the WHO.
“This is really [the WHO’s] highest level of alert,” Thomas Duszynski, director of epidemiology education at Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“This means that this particular virus, or the mpox virus, and the illnesses that it causes, has reached a level that is now at a much higher rate than it should be, than when we see like in a normal year, as well as it’s starting to spill outside of the country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which means that we have to get our arms around it and try and contain it,” he said.
A PHEIC was last declared for mpox during the outbreak in 2022-23, but this current outbreak is different because it involves a clade called clade Ib that seems to spread more quickly and has a higher mortality rate, Duszynski said.
What becomes available when a PHEIC is declared?
Emily Smith, an associate professor in the Department of Global Health at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, said declaring a PHEIC can help galvanize collaboration and mobilize resources.
“Collaboration can be really important in terms of sharing data from different surveillance systems or even things like genomic sequences, so we can understand how different cases are related to each other,” she told ABC News.
On the mobilizing resources front, Tedros said during the media briefing on Wednesday that WHO had released $1.5 million in contingency funds and planned to release more soon. The WHO’s regional response plan — including support surveillance and preparedness and response activities — will cost $15 million.
Additionally, last week, the WHO triggered the process to begin allowing mpox vaccines to go through the process for emergency use listing, similar to what was seen with the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.
The PHEIC will also allow vaccines to be sent to other affected countries more quickly than they might have been without an emergency declaration, Duszynski said.
“In the Democratic Republic of Congo, their access to the impact vaccine is limited,” he said. “So, for example, the U.S. has dedicated 50,000 doses of that vaccine for the Democratic Republic of Congo, so that that’s part of that cooperation of not only sending, knowledge and science and research, but also aid, in the sense of vaccines.”
“We could also send personnel, such as epidemiologists, to help with the investigation and to help identify those who are ill and put some isolation and quarantine around those individuals to keep this virus from spreading,” Duszynski added.
What should the public do?
The experts said the best thing to do is to get vaccinated if you are a high-risk individual.
Currently, the JYNNEOS vaccine, a two-dose vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and mpox, is the only vaccine being used in the United States to prevent mpox. Data from Africa has shown two doses of JYNNEOS are at least 85% effective in preventing mpox infection.
High-risk individuals include those who are immunocompromised, suffer from chronic diseases, or have a history of eczema, which causes breaks in the skin and can lead to mpox transmission.
Smith said other high-risk individuals include gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men — a group that was most affected during the 2022-23 outbreak — should get vaccinated.
She said that anyone who has only received their first dose should be sure to get their second dose.
“Just be aware if you or anyone you know, or your family, experiences lesions, skin lesions or genital lesions,” Smith added. “[You] definitely want to contact your doctor. We do have treatment options available in the U.S.”
Both Smith and Duszynski reiterated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s warning that the general public is at low risk from the type of mpox circulating in the DRC.
(NEW YORK) — Actress Halle Berry is among the new wave of women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond speaking out about menopause to take the conversation out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
In May, Berry, a 58-year-old mom of two, stood outside the U.S. Capitol and yelled, “I’m in menopause.”
On Thursday, Berry joined nearly two dozen other women in a conversation about menopause live on ABC News’ Good Morning America.
Menopause — the end of a woman’s reproductive years — is a natural process that impacts millions of women each year.
Yet for years, the topic has been considered taboo to talk about publicly and has been chronically underfunded when it comes to research.
Here are the answers to 10 commonly asked questions about menopause:
1. What is menopause?
Menopause is the point in a woman’s life when she has not had any menstruation, including no bleeding or spotting, for 12 months, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
It occurs when the ovaries naturally stop producing estrogen and progesterone, which causes a woman’s menstrual cycles to end permanently.
2. What age does menopause start in most women?
The average age for menopause, when your periods stop permanently, is 52, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
A woman may experience menopause earlier if they have never been pregnant, if they smoke or if they have certain health conditions, including some autoimmune diseases.
Only about 1% of women in the U.S. go through premature menopause, or menopause that happens before the age of 40. About 5% of women naturally go through early menopause between ages 40 and 45, data shows.
3. What are the symptoms of menopause?
Menopause brings with it many symptoms, the type and severity of which can vary from person to person.
Symptoms of menopause may include hot flashes, mood changes, depression and anxiety, difficulties sleeping, urinary incontinence, irregular periods or bleeding, vaginal dryness and infections, and changes in libido, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
4. How long does menopause last?
For most women, the period of menopause lasts four years, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
5. Do menopause symptoms continue post-menopause?
Yes, after menopause, women may continue to experience symptoms including vaginal dryness, hot flashes and low hormone levels, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
6. What is perimenopause?
Perimenopause, the period of time before menopause when ovaries make varying amounts of the hormones estrogen and progesterone can start as early as 40 years old and can last up to 10 or more years.
7. What are the symptoms of perimenopause?
Symptoms of perimenopause include everything from changes in mood to increased anxiety and depression, changes in sleep, brain fogginess, and changes in frequency and severity of headaches.
Additional physical changes may include changes in hair patterns, breast tenderness, midsection weight gain, vaginal dryness, changes in bleeding patterns and changes in libido.
8. Does pregnancy still happen during perimenopause?
Yes, women can still get pregnant during perimenopause as the body may still ovulate.
9. Is it possible to find relief from menopause symptoms?
Yes, there are ways to treat symptoms of menopause so women are advised to have open and honest conversations with their doctor to get relief.
For some symptoms, your doctor or health care provider can work with you to find medications that help provide relief, including hormonal and non-hormonal medicines and over-the-counter products.
Menopausal hormone therapy, also called hormone replacement therapy and hormone therapy, may be an option if your symptoms are severe enough to interrupt your day-to-day life, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Menopausal hormone therapy can be taken as a pill, as a skin patch, or, in some cases, as a cream.
The Office on Women’s Health recommends using the lowest dose of menopausal hormone therapy for the shortest time needed.
10. Is research underway to offer more support for menopause?
Menopause and other women-only health conditions have traditionally lagged behind in research and understanding. As recently as the 1970s, few women were enrolled in clinical trials, and women’s health needs were believed to be a low priority. One 2022 study found women still only account for 29% to 34% of some early-stage clinical trials due to concerns about fertility.
In March, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on women’s health research, which particularly focuses on increasing research on women’s midlife health and improving management of menopause-related issues.
Under a legislative proposal introduced in the U.S. Congress in May by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, $125 million of federal funding would be set aside for clinical trials, public health, and medical research on menopause.
The bill is backed by 17 senators — three Republicans, 13 Democrats and one independent, all of them women.
USA’s Noah Lyles celebrates with his bronze medal during the medal ceremony Men’s 200m Final at the Stade de France on the fourteenth day of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in France. (Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris came to an end this weekend, most of the conversation surrounded the number of medals won, and the number of records broken.
However, there was also another topic at hand: the presence of COVID-19 at the Olympics.
At least 40 athletes tested positive for COVID, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), including several Australian swimmers, a British swimmer and a German decathlon competitor.
Additionally, American track and field star Noah Lyles won bronze in the 200-meter race after testing positive for COVID-19 two days prior.
Despite the number of cases, public health experts told ABC News that the Paris Games were actually a success and a testament to how far the world has come since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“COVID-19 was so less disruptive in Paris than it was in Tokyo or Beijing because of what science and medicine have done over the past four years,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
“That should be the story, that we went from something that was disrupting the entire world to something that is now kind of a rank-and-file respiratory virus. I think that’s the real story. Here is the success of humanity with tackling this scientific problem, and the minds that went to work on this problem and made it something that is no longer a major concern for a lot of the population,” Adalja said.
How the Paris Olympics were different
The Paris Olympics were billed as the first games with some sense of normalcy after the strict restrictions seen during the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
Athletes were under strict testing and quarantine protocols and had to follow stringent mitigation measures to participate in the 2021 or 2022 Games. No spectators were allowed at the Tokyo Games while a limited number were allowed at the Beijing Games.
Comparatively, there were no formal requirements for regular COVID-19 testing or reporting for the Paris Games, either in general or for specific events.
An athlete testing positive did not require them to sit out from an event either. Participating following a positive test was left up to the discretion of the athlete, team and medical staff. Additionally, there were no restrictions regarding spectators.
“The Paris Olympics were something that really resembled pre-COVID Olympics, nothing like what we saw in Beijing, nothing like what we saw in Tokyo,” Adalja said. “And I think that reflects the fact that the context regarding the virus that causes COVID-19 has changed a lot over the past four years.”
COVID at the Paris Games
Only about 40 COVID-19 cases were confirmed among athletes at the 2024 Summer Games. Experts say it’s not out of the ordinary that cases would occur and that, likely, the total is an undercount of cases.
“I am sure that that is a gross under-representation of the actual number of cases,” Dr. Pedro Piedra, a professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology and Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, told ABC News.
“[COVID] testing is not required, and testing for other respiratory viruses has really not been required either, and whenever you have such an event, it is an excellent ground for viruses to transmit. And that’s not just unique to the Olympics. That’s anytime you have a lot of individuals cluster over time together,” he continued.
The Australian Olympic Committee said last week that 16 athletes tested positive for COVID, at least seven of whom were swimmers.
The British Olympic Committee said swimmer Adam Peaty tested positive for COVID-19 less than 24 hours after winning silver in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke final.
Perhaps, most famous, Lyles — the American sprinter — revealed after winning bronze in the 200-meter men’s final that he had tested positive two days beforehand. Lyles drew a great deal of criticism for running the race unmasked and not publicly revealing his diagnosis before the competition.
However, experts said that COVID-19 is beginning to be considered an endemic virus, meaning it is typically present, and should be treated like other endemic viruses, like the flu.
“A lot has changed, and this virus is now what we would call an endemic virus; it’s basically part of the new respiratory viruses that circulate within our community,” Piedra said. “We don’t try to test every virus for every illness that we have. If we did, I think it would cost significantly, and on many occasions, we don’t have any form of treatment or prevention methods.”
Adalja said because COVID-19 is being considered an endemic respiratory virus, each individual case is less significantly important.
“We have so many tools that science and medicine have given us that make COVID-19 so much more manageable in 2024 than it was in 2020, 2021, 2022,” he said. “So, in that sense, the fact that you’re not hearing about every case as it occurs is just like you don’t hear about every case of influenza that occurs.”
He continued, “I think that the fact that people are back to their lives, that people are winning medals when they have COVID-19 really shows that despite all of the obstacles the governments put in place to deal with COVID appropriately, scientists, physicians delivered and developed so many tools that were able to now live our lives in the midst of COVID-19 and not have It be as disruptive as it once was.”
