Effective vaccinations for COVID-19 have been readily available in the United States for well over a year and a new vaccine has just been added to the arsenal. Novavax (NVX-CoV2373), created by a company of the same name, was granted emergency use authorization in early July and has now been endorsed by the CDC.(2) Novavax is approved for adults who are 18 years and older and currently is limited to...

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is the most common bacterial cause of pharyngitis, often referred to as strep throat. GAS can also cause severe invasive infections. People who are elderly, have skin breakdown (when the skin is deprived of blood flow, the skin can become damaged or develop ulcers), or have chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, are at increased risk. Each year in the United States...

Another respiratory virus of concern. Common, yet underdiagnosed...

Every year we anticipate the rounds of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and now Covid-19; but there is a lesser-known culprit of seasonal respiratory infections.

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Many parents in the United States are reeling from the effects of an outbreak of Cronobacter sakazakii in powdered infant formula. Between September 2021 and January 2022, four cases of Cronobacter infections in infants were reported to the FDA. In each case, the infants were fed powdered formula from Abbott Nutrition.(1)

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Miracle in the Mucin... Discovered in 2004, Akkermansia muciniphila is a relative newcomer to microbiology. Akkermansia was named for the microbial ecologist Antoon Akkermans, and muciniphila meaning preferring mucin. This organism in the phylum Verrucomicrobia was the result of a study that used purified mucin as...

In December 2021, Canada reported the first case of the 2021-2022 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in North America. Subsequently, HPAI H5N1 viruses have been confirmed in wild birds, backyard flocks, and commercial poultry facilities in both Canada and the United States. (1) According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of April 26, 2022, there have been almost 37...

Genetic engineering can help preserve endangered species

Since 1978, Escherichia coli has been used in the development of synthetic “human” insulin (1). More recently, E. coli has become an essential part in the development of cancer drugs (2). Researchers at The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for...

As the COVID-19 pandemic moves into its third year, new treatment options to combat the coronavirus disease are being authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In December, 2021, the FDA issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for two oral antiviral treatments for COVID-19, Molnupiravir and Paxlovid.(1,2)
This comes at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and COVID-19...

Salmonella Infantis

Globally, Salmonella causes illness in 93.8 million people and causes approximately 155,000 deaths each year.(1) Within the United States alone, Salmonella is responsible for 1.35 million infections, 26,000 of which...

How dangerous are the BA.2 and BA.3 sub-variants compared to the Omicron BA.1 that we already know?

South Africa has one of the most robust public health systems in the world, carefully monitoring their SARS-CoV-2 case load, which has been dominated these last few months by the Delta variant. In recent months, however...

Probiotics found to assist in restoring normal immune function...

COVID-19 disrupts normal bowel flora

SARS-CoV-2 infection induces an aggressive inflammatory response which is strongly implicated in the cause of multi-organ dysfunction...