Here is Dr. Paul Klotman’s Week 221 video address. The highlights are:
- The arachnids are coming – palm-sized spiders from Southeast Asia and Texas brown tarantulas too. Neither is a public health threat.
- The cicadas have emerged. Their main threat to humans is incessant noise. 🙂
- There is a circulating enterovirus D68 that usually causes typically mild upper and lower respiratory infections
- Parainfluenza is circulating and affecting mostly the very young, very old, and immunocompromised. If you are in one or more of these categories, wear a mask in public places.
- COVID variants KP.2 and KP.3 are becoming the major strains in the USA but are also appearing abroad.
- Last year’s COVID vaccine based on the XBB strain will probably offer some protection against not only JN.1 but its KP sub-variants as well.
- Although the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended last week that the COVID vaccine update focus on the JN.1 strain, the CDC has asked Moderna to target the KP.1 strain.
- There are now three US human cases of H5N1 bird flu – all related to dairy farm workers. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission
- A fatal case of H5N2 bird flu was documented in Mexico. Alas; it is something to watch.
In other COVID news, the m-RNA viral vaccine manufacturers are testing a combined Influenza/COVID vaccine, and initial trials look good. We may have a 2-in-1 vaccine this fall. Stay tuned.