Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Research: Long-Term Problems May Be Triggered By Common Infections
In most people, norovirus causes a few days of misery spent in the bathroom and then is quickly forgotten. Epstein-Barr virus can pass without any indication at all. And many people shrug off COVID-19. But a growing body of research suggests that in some unlucky few, the immune system overreacts to these seemingly minor insults, leaving years or even a lifetime of symptoms. (Weintraub, 10/31)
In updates on the flu —
Officials in Hidalgo County, Texas, have confirmed that a 3-year-old girl’s death earlier this month was flu-related. The child’s death is the nation’s first confirmed pediatric flu death in the United States for the 2022 flu season, according to CDC data updated Friday morning. (Masso and Nexstar, 10/28)
There are increasing signs that flu season is off to a very early start in parts of the United States, with the cumulative hospitalization rate higher than it has been at this point in the fall for more than a decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. (Branswell, 10/28)
Influenza is hitting the U.S. harder and earlier this year, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday shows. (Habeshian, 10/28)
In updates on acute flaccid myelitis —
Physicians who treat children who develop a strange polio-like syndrome known as acute flaccid myelitis had been steeling themselves this fall for an onslaught of cases of the irreversible condition, which appears to be triggered by infection with an enterovirus known as EV-D68. (Branswell, 10/31)
