The WHO Emergency Committee on COVID-19 met last week and on its advice, WHO’s Director-General extended the PHEIC designation but signposted clearly its possible lifting/termination in three months. Please find below the link to the statement of the Emergency Committee: https://www.who.int/news/item/30-01-2023-statement-on-the-fourteenth-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)-pandemic. Some background to the decision is outlined in Nature here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00294-9 Meanwhile the US has announced the end of COVID-19 emergency declarations (national emergency and public health emergency) in May.
BlueDot discussed the situation in China recently and pointed to concerns based on three factors: lack of reliable data on cases, deaths and variants; insufficient population-level immunity (due to strict lockdowns, low vaccine uptake and somewhat less effective vaccines); and currently increased international travel in the next month (Lunar New Year is the largest annual travel period) leading to increased importation and exportation of variants.
The average reported age for those who died of COVID-19 in China recently was 80.3, and the average reported age of patients with severe COVID-19 is 75.5 years. Individuals aged 60+ make up approximately 90% of those with severe COVID-19. In recent days the Chinese Communist Party has announced that the outbreak is coming to an end, but this is somewhat difficult to reconcile with publicly available information.
A new pre-print article on aircraft wastewater testing at three UK airports shows that the virus was present on almost all flights in spite of pre-flight testing requirements being in place at the time: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001346
A couple more NEJM articles suggesting superior protection (against severe disease) from bivalent boosters for SARS-CoV-2 are here - Lin et al: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2215471 (University of North Carolina) and Zou et al: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2214916 (a Pfizer supported study). Additionally an article on Novavax boosters is here – Alves et al: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2215509 (also a pharmaceutical company study).
There is a WHO EPI-WIN webinar coming up on the current COVID-19 situation and what´s next for COVID-19. This will be at 13:00–14:00 CET Geneva, on Wednesday, 8 February 2023. The webinar can also be viewed live and post-event on the EPI-WIN YouTube channel.
There are various updates (courtesy of Airfinity) on other infectious diseases. Malawi has recorded over 1,000 cholera deaths as the outbreak continues, while Argentina has issued an alert around chikungunya fever following increased incidence in neighbouring Paraguay. Bangladesh has reported further Nipah virus cases and deaths, while the first hantavirus cases for 2023 have been reported in South America. Haiti continues to report cholera cases but at a slower rate, while Nigeria reports further diphtheria cases. Singapore expects a high disease burden for dengue in 2023. Lassa fever cases are increasing in Nigeria, while Nepal reports further measles cases.
A Nature article on a recent Eurosurveillance article, with important evidence of avian flu being passed from mammal to mammal, is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00201-2
You may have seen some claims on social media that the US FAA changed its EKG parameters for a first degree AV block in pilots (which it did in October 2022 raising the cut-off P-R interval for triggering investigation from 200 to 300 milliseconds), due to heart damage caused by COVID vaccines. This claim is not true and the change has nothing to do with vaccines. The FAA has stated, in a notice to all its medical examiners about the change: “The FAA’s Federal Air Surgeon determined that pilots and air traffic controllers can safely receive the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Novavax vaccine. The FAA has no evidence of aircraft accidents or incapacitations caused by pilots suffering medical complications associated with COVID-19 vaccines. When making changes to medical requirements and guidance, the FAA follows standard processes based on data and science. New scientific evidence enabled the FAA to safely raise the tolerance used to screen for a certain heart condition. We publish updates to the Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners every month and notify AMEs when changes are posted.”
David Powell
IATA Medical Advisor