The panel voted 21-0 in favor of XBB-targeted shots, and the committee’s discussion indicated that the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant would be preferred.

FDA official Dr. Peter Marks indicated the agency was likely to settle on XBB.1.5, which manufacturers suggested could be ready for inoculations soonest.

COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax, are already developing versions of their respective vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 and other currently circulating subvariants. Preclinical data from all three was presented at the meeting.

“It seems like it’s the most feasible to get across the finish line early without resulting in delays in availability,” Melinda Wharton, vaccine policy official at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said of a shot aimed at XBB.1.5.

If XBB.1.5 is chosen as the target for this year’s campaign, it would be especially helpful to Novavax, as their protein-based vaccine takes longer to manufacture than rival mRNA-based shots. If the FDA chose a different target, Novavax could again find itself playing catch up to rivals.

“The fact that most of the manufacturers are ready to work on XBB.1.5 is an added reason to select this strain or this variant given the immunologic data,” said meeting chair Dr. Arnold Monto.

After the meeting, Novavax issued a release saying it expects to be able to deliver its XBB-targeted COVID-19 shot this fall.

FDA staff reviewers in documents released this week said available evidence suggests this year’s shots should target an XBB subvariant. XBB and its offshoots, which now account for most US infections, are descendants of the Omicron variant that caused COVID-19 cases to surge to record levels early last year.

US health regulators are looking to bring the next COVID-19 shots more closely in line with the circulating virus.

Pfizer, in its presentation, said it could supply its monovalent shots targeting the XBB.1.5 subvariant by the end of July, while Moderna said it was prepared to supply a new variant-containing shot for fall season.

A so-called monovalent, or single target, vaccine would be a change from the most recent bivalent COVID-19 boosters that targeted both the original strain of the coronavirus and Omicron.

The FDA takes recommendations from its outside experts into consideration before making a final decision on composition of the shots.

Thursday’s proceedings comes after an advisory group to the World Health Organization (WHO) last month recommended the next wave of COVID-19 booster shots be updated to target XBB subvariants. Europe’s medicine regulators have also backed that recommendation.

The CDC recommended booster shots broadly last year. But panel member Dr. Paul Offit questioned whether the shots needed to be recommended for “everybody every season,” noting that the highest risk groups are those most likely to benefit from an annual booster.

Only about 17% of the U.S. population – some 56.5 million people – received a COVID-19 booster during the 2022-2023 vaccination season, according to government data through early May. Older Americans were boosted at a higher rate than the general population.

Between Moderna and Pfizer, Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects 75 million doses to be sold in the United States during the 2023-2024 campaign.

Moderna last month said it continues to expect the US annual COVID-19 market to be 100 million doses, largely in line with Pfizer’s view of 102 million.

COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations have declined in 2023, and the US government in May ended its COVID Public Health Emergency, which had allowed millions of Americans to receive vaccines, tests and treatments at no cost. – Rappler.com

The woman, exercising her right under German privacy law for her name not to be made public, is suing the German vaccine maker for at least 150,000 euro ($161,500) in damages for bodily harm as well as compensation for unspecified material damage, according to the regional court in Hamburg which is hearing the case and law firm Rogert & Ulbrich, which is representing her.

The plaintiff claims she suffered upper-body pain, swollen extremities, fatigue, and a sleeping disorder due to the vaccine.

The first hearing is on Monday.

Tobias Ulbrich, a lawyer at Rogert & Ulbrich, told Reuters he aimed to challenge in court the assessment made by European Union regulators and German vaccine assessment bodies that the BioNTech shot has a positive risk-benefit profile.

German pharmaceutical law states that makers of drugs or vaccines are only liable to pay damages for side-effects if “medical science” shows that their products cause disproportionate harm relative to their benefits or if the label information is wrong.

BioNTech, which holds the marketing authorisation in Germany for the shot it developed with Pfizer, said it concluded after careful consideration that the case was without merit.

“The positive benefit-risk profile of Comirnaty remains positive and the safety profile has been well characterised,” the biotech firm said, referring to the vaccine’s brand name.

It noted about 1.5 billion people had received the shot across the world, including more than 64 million in Germany.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) says that BioNTech’s Comirnaty, the most commonly used in the Western world, is safe to use.

In a media briefing last week, the EMA reaffirmed the benefit of all COVID shots it approved, including BioNTech’s, saying in the first year of the pandemic alone, vaccines were estimated to have helped save almost 20 million lives globally.

It has said there is a very small risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, two types of heart inflammation, following vaccination with Comirnaty, mainly for young males.

Unexpected side-effects after a drug has regulatory approval are rare. The unprecedented speed at which COVID vaccines were developed during the pandemic meant that potential uncommon side-effects may not have been detected as readily as they might have been in traditionally longer trials.

EMA has said that safety monitoring had not been compromised during the fast-track assessment.

The EMA had registered almost 1.7 million spontaneous reports of suspected side-effects by May, which translates into about 0.2 for every 100 administered doses.

Almost 768 million vaccine doses have been administered in the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The most common temporary side-effects are headache, fever, fatigue and muscle pain.

The EMA also monitors adverse events or illness after vaccination, and checks for frequencies that surpass normal rates in the non-vaccinated population.

Liability

It is not clear who would pay the legal costs or compensation if the plaintiff wins the case.

Sources have said some of the EU’s bulk purchase agreements with vaccine makers, including BioNTech-Pfizer, contained full or partial liability waivers for both legal costs and potential compensation, which could force EU governments to bear some of the costs.

Like many countries, Germany also has a public sector financial support scheme for people who suffer permanent harm from vaccines, known as a no-fault compensation programme, but participation in the programme does not block someone seeking damages separately.

The United States has granted manufacturers immunity from liability for COVID vaccines that receive regulatory approval.

Rogert & Ulbrich says it has filed about 250 cases for clients seeking damages for alleged side-effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

Another law firm, Caesar-Preller, says it is representing 100 cases, with both firms saying separately they cover almost all cases in Germany between them.

A handful of similar cases have been filed in Italy. – Rappler.com

The FDA nod “represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people,” Neuralink said in a tweet. It did not elaborate on the aims of the study, saying only that it was not recruiting yet and more details would be available soon.

The FDA acknowledged in a statement that the agency cleared Neuralink to use its brain implant and surgical robot for trials on patients but declined to provide more details.

Neuralink and Musk did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Victor Krauthamer, an adjunct biomedical engineering professor who spent three decades at the FDA, including a stint overseeing the office that reviews human-trial requests for brain implants, said the FDA does not typically inspect facilities as part of their review of applications for clinical trials. But he added this would have been warranted in this case, given the concerns around Neuralink’s animal experiments.

“If the animal testing is unreliable, then (human trial) approval may be based on flawed animal safety data. The FDA should have verified their trust of animal study results,” Krauthamer said.

Several predictions

Neuralink had hoped to receive approval to implant its device in 10 patients, Reuters has reported. But more recently, the company was negotiating a lower number of patients with the agency after it raised safety concerns, current and former employees said. It is not known how many patients the FDA ultimately approved.

Musk envisions brain implants could cure a range of conditions including obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia as well as enabling Web browsing and telepathy. He made headlines late last year when he said he was so confident in the devices’ safety that he would be willing to implant them in his children.

On at least four occasions since 2019, Musk predicted Neuralink would begin human trials. But the company sought FDA approval only in early 2022, and the agency rejected the application, Reuters reported in March.

The FDA had pointed out several safety concerns to Neuralink that needed to be addressed before sanctioning human trials, Reuters reported. Some of the issues involved the lithium battery of the device, the possibility of the implant’s wires migrating within the brain, and the challenge of safely extracting the device without damaging brain tissue. – Rappler.com

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that while social media offers some benefits, there are “ample indicators that social media could also harm children’s well-being.”

“We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address,” Murthy said.

Social media use may cause and perpetuate body image issues, affect eating behaviors and sleep quality, and lead to social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls, the advisory said, citing responses from a survey conducted among adolescents.

Adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to the advisory.

Most adolescents say social media helps them feel more accepted, more supported during tough times, more connected to their friends, and more creative, the advisory also said.

It said policymakers should strengthen safety standards in ways that enhance those benefits for children of all ages, while noting that inappropriate and harmful content continues to be easily and widely accessible to children.

Tech companies should adhere to age limits to control access to social media platforms, and be transparent about data regarding the impact of their products on children, the advisory urges.

Algorithms and platform design should seek to maximize the potential benefits of social media instead of features designed to make users spend more time on them, it said.

“The first principle of healthcare is to do no harm – that’s the same standard we need to start holding social media platforms to,” said Saul Levin, CEO of the American Psychiatric Association.

The report includes suggestions for what parents, tech companies, as well as children and adolescents, can do to avoid dangerous pitfalls and make the social media experience more positive. They include creation of a family media plan, encouraging of in-person friendships, talking to children about how they spend their time online, and encouraging them to seek help should they need it.

It included a reminder of the new 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline “if you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis.” – Rappler.com

The global health body is first revising guidelines for treating children and adolescents with obesity, and will then update recommendations for adults, said Francesco Branca, WHO director of nutrition and food safety.

The WHO last issued global guidelines on the topic in 2000, which are used as a blueprint for countries without the resources to draft their own plans.

As part of the work, the WHO has commissioned the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, in Milan, Italy, to assess the evidence for the use of all drugs for children and adolescents – from older options like GSK’s Xenical to newer, more effective treatments like Wegovy and Eli Lilly and Co’s Mounjaro, Branca told Reuters.

“The kind of communication that has been done around these drugs – ‘We’ve found a solution’ – that’s wrong,” said Branca. Drugs for obesity are important but must be “part of a comprehensive approach,” he said. “This is not a silver bullet.”

Branca said that other interventions, including diet and exercise, remain critical to help manage obesity. The latest WHO data shows that the percentage of children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 who are obese or overweight has risen to just over 18% in 2016 from 4% in 1975, and this now represents more than 340 million people.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Wegovy and Mounjaro were originally developed for type 2 diabetes to help control blood glucose. More recently, they have been shown to help people lose around 15% of their body weight, capturing the attention of patients, investors, and even celebrities.

Part of a class of drugs known as GLP-1 agonists, they are given by a weekly injection and work by affecting hunger signals to the brain and slowing the rate at which a person’s stomach empties, making them feel full longer.

Studies suggest people are likely to have to take the drugs for the rest of their lives to keep the weight off.

Wegovy is approved for weight-loss in the United States and Europe, while Mounjaro is expected to receive US approval later this year. The enormous demand for the drugs is expected to be worth $100 billion in annual sales within a decade, with as many as 10 different drugs on the market.

US medical groups are also reviewing their obesity treatment guidelines to consider the best use of Wegovy and similar drugs, with some specialists advocating broad use while others recommend prioritizing them for high-risk patients with health conditions, like diabetes or heart disease, that are exacerbated by excess weight.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended using such medicines in children age 12 or older with obesity, even though the long-term impacts have yet to be studied.

The WHO said its revised guidelines will be based on more robust methodology than previous iterations and include up-to-the-minute science. The first draft of the new management guidelines for children and adolescents are expected by the end of this year.

Branca said the researchers at Mario Negri, as well as other institutions working on the guidelines, had been extensively vetted to avoid conflict of interest concerns.

Novo Nordisk was suspended earlier this year from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry for its marketing practices, such alleged funding of health professionals and providing training that the association alleged was intended to promote its drug.

“We really screen the potential conflicts of interest,” said Branca.

He described obesity as a “rising epidemic.”

“There are multiple reasons why we really have to take much more serious and bolder action,” he said. – Rappler.com

In the study, where researchers analyzed the hormone levels of 23 women aged 20 to 34 with regular menstrual cycles, it was found that estrogen-only contraceptives could work just as effectively even if hormone doses were reduced by as much as 92%.

As for progestrone-only contraceptives, hormone doses can be lowered by 43% and still have the same effectivity, they found.

The study was undertaken by University of the Philippines (UP) mathematics associate professor Aurelio de los Reyes V and PhD mathematics graduate Brenda Lyn Gavina, along with their collaborators Mette Olufsen of the North Carolina State University, Suzanne Lenhart of the University of Tennessee, and Johnny Ottesen of the Roskilde University of Denmark.

In the study, the researchers tracked natural hormone levels and the effect of hormones taken through contraceptives through a modified menstrual cycle model they developed.

Using math, they determined the lowest amount of hormones needed to prevent ovulation. Apart from the finding that lower hormone dosages can still be effective, the researchers also found that taking the pills before the tenth day of the menstrual cycle can be just as effective as a daily dose in preventing pregnancy.

“With the rapid development of new implants and injections providing continuous administration, there is great potential to implement new treatment scheme minimizing dose,” the researchers said. The study was published in the PLoS Computational Biology on April 13.

UP professor De Los Reyes said that their study suggests an “effective and cost-efficient hormonal contraceptive administration,” and contributes to a “longstanding objective” of safer contraceptive through reducing the dosage of hormonal contraceptives.

“We also hope to build on the current model to investigate reproductive health concerns in women like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and ovarian cysts. We would like to caution that our model is not directly translatable to clinical setup (or actual patients) as of yet, but the principles and its proof of concept could be potentially implemented to achieve safe and cost-efficient contraception,” said De Los Reyes.

Must Read

At this female-focused clinic, women’s health goes beyond seeing an OB-GYNE

Birth control pills are the most popular modern contraceptive method among women in the Philippines as of 2022. However, some pill users have to deal with side effects like spotting, bleeding, sore breasts, nausea, or headaches.

According to a 2022 article from the Australian Prescriber journal, hormonal contraception is also known to precipitate or perpetuate depression in some patients. Some older generations of birth control pills that contain ethinylestradiol are linked to severe mood problems, while newer generations containing physiological forms of estrogen may be more tolerable, with a weaker link to mood problems.

More than 8 million Filipinos used modern birth control methods in 2020, according to the Philippine Commission on Population and Development.

Reproductive health in the Philippines is a multidimensional issue, as adolescent pregnancy remains prevalent, and not all women are empowered to make decisions over their own bodies. ([READ] ‘Nandiyan na’: Young Filipinas accept pregnancy as duty, but stigma remains – study)

The country’s reproductive health law, despite being passed over a decade ago, remains to have gaps in its implementation, such as the rollout of comprehensive sexuality education. – Rappler.com

The WHO’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday, May 5, and recommended the UN-agency declare an end to the coronavirus crisis as a “public health emergency of international concern”, which has been in place for over three years.

“It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the end of the emergency did not mean COVID was over as a global health threat.

The WHO’s emergency committee first declared that COVID represented its highest level of alert on January 30, 2020. The status helps focus international attention on a global health threat, as well as bolstering collaboration on vaccines and treatments.

The decision to end the global health emergency status was supported by a majority of the committee, said Didier Houssin, head of the agency’s COVID emergency committee.

Lifting it is a sign of the progress the world has made fighting the disease, but COVID-19 is here to stay, the WHO has said, even if it no longer represents an emergency.

The death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, 2023, according to WHO data, reflecting widespread vaccination, availability of better treatments and a level of population immunity from prior infections.

Ending the emergency could mean that international collaboration or funding efforts are also brought to an end or shift in focus, although many have already adapted as the pandemic has receded in different regions.

“The battle is not over. We still have weaknesses and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus. And it needs to be fixed,” said the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan.

The WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, although it did start using the term for COVID in March 2020.

“In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins,” Ryan said.

Last year, US President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like a number of other countries, the world’s biggest economy has begun dismantling its domestic state of emergency for COVID, which officially ends May 11, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines and testing for many people and shift responsibility to the commercial market.

Other regions have taken similar steps. The European Union said in April last year the emergency phase of the pandemic was over, and the WHO’s African head, Matshidiso Moeti, said in December it was time to move to routine management of COVID across the continent.

The WHO’s declaration comes just four months after China ended its prolonged severe COVID restrictions and was ravaged by a big surge in infections.

In many parts of the world, testing has dwindled dramatically, and people have largely stopped wearing masks. In some countries, mask-wearing mandates have resumed during COVID outbreaks. The WHO published a plan this week advising countries on how to live with COVID long-term. – Rappler.com

The divorced 33-year-old lives in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, which legalized registration of children by unmarried women in February, something China is considering implementing nationwide to address record low birth rates.

The changes mean unmarried women can take paid maternity leave and receive child subsidies previously only available to married couples. Crucially, Chen could access in-vitro fertility (IVF) treatment legally in a private clinic.

She is now 10 weeks pregnant.

“Becoming a single parent is not for everyone, but I’m happy with the decision,” said Chen, who works in logistics. “Equally, getting married or not is for each individual to decide. We have liberalized the policies here and I know a lot of single women are doing IVF.”

Concerned about China’s first population drop in six decades and its rapid aging, the government’s political advisers proposed in March that single and unmarried women should have access to egg freezing and IVF treatment, among other services. China’s leaders have not commented publicly on the recommendations.

Liberalizing IVF nationwide could unleash more demand for fertility treatment in what is already the world’s biggest market, straining limited fertility services. Some investors in the industry see an opportunity to expand.

“If China changes their policy to allow single women to have children, this can result in an increase of IVF demand,” said Yve Lyppens, director of business development for Asia Pacific at INVO Bioscience, which is awaiting regulatory approval to launch its IVF technology in China after signing a distribution agreement with Guangzhou-based Onesky Holdings last year.

“However, if there is a sudden increase, China will have an even larger capacity issue.”

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) did not respond to a request for comment about liberalizing IVF access, though it has previously acknowledged that many young women are delaying plans to marry and have children, noting that high costs of education and child-rearing have contributed to declining marriage rates.

The NHC’s Sichuan branch did not address questions from Reuters about whether it would offer IVF treatment to all women in public hospitals. When it announced the changes in February, Sichuan’s NHC said they aimed to “promote long-term and balanced population development.”

Shanghai and the southern Guangdong province have also permitted unmarried women to register their children but IVF services for single women remain banned.

Huge unmet need

Lyppens said most IVF clinics in China operated at full capacity before the COVID-19 pandemic, and are likely to be in a similar situation again soon as the country has lifted virus-related curbs. There are no estimates for how many patients want but cannot access treatment, but some women benefiting from it say they spend hours waiting for their turn.

“The queues in the hospital are very long,” said 34-year-old Xiangyu, a married woman undergoing IVF in Chongqing, some 300 kilometers east of Chengdu. She spoke on the condition of partial anonymity for privacy reasons.

Chinese hospitals and clinics, both public and private, provide about 1 million rounds of IVF treatment – or cycles – annually, compared with 1.5 million in the rest of the world, according to academic journals and industry experts.

The price for a cycle – which involves medication for ovarian stimulation, egg collection, insemination in a laboratory and embryo transfer – is regulated in China. It ranges between $3,500 and $4,500, about a quarter of US prices.

China has 539 public and private IVF facilities, and the NHC has said it aims to set up one facility for every 2.3 million people by 2025, which would take the total above 600.

China’s IVF market, including treatment, drugs and equipment, is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 14.5% in coming years, nearly doubling to 85.4 billion yuan ($12.4 billion) in 2025 from 49.7 billion yuan, research house Leadleo estimated in a report last year. Vivian Zhang, managing director of Merck China, which provides fertility products and services for IVF clinics in the country, said cities in the less-affluent inland provinces are quickly developing fertility centers similar to those in Beijing and Shanghai.

“There is a huge unmet medical need for Chinese patients,” said Zhang, adding she was “very optimistic” about the IVF market in China.

Gender power imbalances, the stigma in Chinese society that single pregnant women face, and the lack of social surveys make it difficult to quantify total demand and how much it would grow should the reforms be introduced in the near future, industry experts say.

But proxies exist.

Camila Caso, director of platform at Recharge Capital, which invests in fertility clinics and technology, said 500,000 IVF cycles are provided to Chinese women annually in clinics in other countries – a third of all cycles outside China.

Many Chinese women prefer clinics abroad if they are single, or if they want to do various genetic tests or choose the sex of the child, Caso said. A three-decade-old Chinese law designed to address a gender imbalance bars parents from learning the sex of a fetus.

The country implemented a rigid one-child policy from 1980 until 2015 – the root of many of its demographic challenges that have allowed India to become the world’s most populous nation. The limit has since been raised to three children.

Caso said her fund was currently rolling out two clinics in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur and aims to have around 15 in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in the next three to four years. The fund is not investing in China because of uncertainty over IVF incentives, she said, adding that Recharge could capture Chinese demand via the Southeast Asian market.

Lu Weiying, a Chinese political adviser and chief expert at the Reproductive Medical Center of Women and Children in China’s southern Hainan province, said she submitted a proposal to the country’s leaders in March to give single women access to egg freezing, a procedure more and more people were seeking.

“People in China are marrying and having children much later than previously, which has led to an increase in infertility, miscarriage, and increased risk of fetal abnormalities,” she said.

More choices for women

In the United States, the average success rate of an IVF cycle is 52%, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology says.

In China, the rate is a little over 30%, due in part to high levels of stress among women and a rising average age for having children, said Lin Haiwei, director of Beijing Perfect Family Hospital, which specializes in fertility treatments. Overseas experts say the quality of some IVF laboratories in China is also lower.

Improving access to fertility services won’t fix China’s demographic problem on its own, with factors from low incomes to expensive education, a feeble social safety net, and high gender inequality needing more attention, according to population experts.

But it can still make an impact.

Lin estimates that already around 300,000 babies are born in China via IVF annually – some 3% of newborns.

“I believe a related policy will come out in the near future that can satisfy many people’s desire to have a child,” Lin said.

While more Chinese women have postponed or given up on having babies in recent years, many still want to become mothers.

Joy Yang, a 22-year-old international finance major from Hunan province, said she first heard of IVF on television and she wants it liberalized nationwide, in case she does not find a partner but her financial situation allows her to have a child.

“There are some women who don’t want to get married but they still want to have children. I might choose to do IVF,” said Yang. – Rappler.com

($1 = 6.8894 Chinese yuan renminbi)

But while health concerns about phones use usually focus on the distraction they can cause while driving, the possible effects of radiofrequency exposure, or just how addictive they can be. The microbial infection risk of your phone is much less appreciated – but it’s very real.

A 2019 survey found that most people in the UK use their phones on the toilet. So it’s not surprising to discover studies have found our mobile phones to be dirtier that toilet seats.

We give our phones to children to play with (who aren’t exactly well known for their hygiene). We also eat while using our phones and put them down on all sorts of (dirty) surfaces. All of which can transfer microbes onto your phone along with food deposits for those microbes to eat.

It’s been estimated that people touch their phone hundreds if not thousands of times a day. And while many of us wash our hands regularly after say, going to the bathroom, cooking, cleaning, or gardening, we are much less likely to consider washing our hands after touching our phones. But given how disgusting and germ-infested phones can be, maybe it’s time to think more about mobile phone hygiene.

Germs, bacteria, viruses

Hands pick up bacteria and viruses all the time and are recognized as a route for acquiring infection. So too are the phones we touch. A number of studies conducted on the microbiological colonization of mobile phones show that they can be contaminated with many different kinds of potentially pathogenic bacteria.

These include the diarrhoea-inducing E. coli (which, by the way, comes from human poo) and the skin-infecting Staphylococcus, as well as Actinobacteria, which can cause tuberculosis and diphtheria, Citrobacter, which can lead to painful urinary tract infections, and Enterococcus, which is known to cause meningitis. Klebsiella, Micrococcus, Proteus, Pseudomonas and Streptococcus have also been found on phones and all can have equally nasty effects on humans.

Research has found that many pathogens on phones are often antibiotic resistant, meaning they can’t be treated with conventional drugs. This is worrying as these bacteria can cause skin, gut and respiratory infections that can be life-threatening.

Research has also found that even if you clean your phone with antibacterial wipes or alcohol it can still be recolonized by microorganisms, indicating that sanitization must be a regular process.

Phones contain plastic which can harbor and transmit viruses some of which (the common cold virus) can live on hard plastic surfaces for up to a week. Other viruses such as COVID-19, rotavirus (a highly infectious stomach bug that typically affects babies and young children), influenza and norovirus – which can cause serious respiratory and gut infections – can persist in an infectable form for several days.

Indeed, since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has introduced guidelines for cleaning and disinfecting mobile phones – which, along with door handles, cash machines and lift buttons, are considered reservoirs of infection.

In particular, concern has been raised about the role mobile phones can play in the spread of infectious microbes in hospital and healthcare settings, as well as in schools.

Clean your phone

So it’s clear that you need to start cleaning your phone regularly. The US Federal Communications Commission actually recommends daily sanitation of your phone and other devices – not least because we are still within an active COVID-19 pandemic and the virus can survive for several days on hard plastic surfaces.

Use alcohol-based wipes or sprays. They need to contain at least 70% alcohol to disinfect phone casings and touch screens, and it needs to be done every day if possible.

Do not spray sanitisers directly onto the phone and keep liquids away from connection points or other phone openings. Absolutely avoid using bleach or abrasive cleaners. And wash your hands thoroughly after you’ve finished cleaning.

Thinking about how you handle your phone will also help to avoid it becoming colonized with germs. When not at home, keep your phone in your pocket, or bag and use a disposable paper list of to-do items, rather than constantly consulting your phone. Touch your phone with clean hands – washed with soap and water or disinfected with alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

There are other things you can do to avoid your phone becoming a source of viruses. Do not share your phone with others if you have any infection, or have not first sanitized it. If children are allowed to play with your phone, sanitize it as soon as possible afterwards.

And get in the habit of putting your phone away when not in use, then sanitizing or washing your hands. You might also want to occasionally sanitize your phone charger when you are cleaning your phone. – The Conversation | Rappler.com

Primrose Freestone is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology at the University of Leicester.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The findings in the ambitious Zoonomia Project identified parts of the genome functionally important in people and other mammals and showed how certain mutations can cause disease. The project revealed the genetics of uncommon mammalian traits like hibernation and showed how the sense of smell varies widely.

The researchers said the findings on hibernation genetics could inform human therapeutics, critical care and long-distance space flight. The Zoonomia findings also can help identify genetic mutations that lead to disease, with one study scrutinizing patients with a brain cancer called medulloblastoma.

“We’re taking advantage of the fact that there’s this massive biodiversity on this planet to actually understand ourselves and make new discoveries that are relevant to treating human diseases,” said Elinor Karlsson, director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-leader of the international consortium of researchers.

“The human genome was sequenced more than 20 years ago and, despite that, it’s still really hard to understand what the functional elements are,” added consortium co-leader Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, a comparative genomics professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The findings, detailed in 11 studies published in the journal Science, involved placentals, by far the world’s most common mammalian assemblage, known for giving birth to well-developed babies, and not egg-laying monotremes or pouched marsupials.

The project examined most existing mammalian lineages, though only 4% of species. They ranged in size from the North Pacific right whale, at 59 feet (18 meters) long, to the bumblebee bat, at 1.2 inches (3 cm) long. Our closest evolutionary relatives – chimpanzees and bonobos – were included, along with the western lowland gorilla and Sumatran orangutan.

Felines included the cheetah, Siberian tiger, jaguar, leopard and humble domestic cat. Canines included a celebrity – Alaskan sled dog Balto, famed for bringing lifesaving medicine in 1925 to the city of Nome. The most primitive species was the venomous burrowing insect-eater Hispaniola solenodon, closely related to mammals alive during the dinosaur age.

The researchers identified genomic elements – 4,552 in all – that were pretty much the same across all mammals and were identical in at least 235 of the 240 species, including people.

“Many of these elements are located close to genes involved in embryo development – a process that needs to be tightly controlled if it is to result in the development of a healthy and functioning animal,” said Uppsala University evolutionary geneticist Matthew Christmas, lead author of one of the papers.

In terms of human differences from other mammals, the study pointed to regions associated with developmental and neurological genes. This suggests that evolution of human-specific traits since our species Homo sapiens diverged from a common ancestor with chimpanzees perhaps 6-7 million years ago has involved changes to regulation of nervous system genes.

“This makes sense as some of the biggest differences between us and our ape cousins are in our ‘brain power’ and cognition. It seems that a lot of what makes us human comes down to tweaks in the way that neurological genes are regulated, rather than any big changes in the genes themselves,” Christmas said.

The research showed that placentals, dating to about 100 million years ago, began diversifying before the asteroid strike 66 million years ago that doomed the dinosaurs and enabled mammals to go from subordinate to dominant.

Zoonomia demonstrated how some mammals have a very keen sense of smell – Hoffman’s two-toed sloth, the nine-banded armadillo and the African savanna elephant – while others have almost none – whales and dolphins. Humans were somewhat average. – Rappler.com