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Boost in flu shot uptake may be 'silver lining' of pandemic – TheRecord.com

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WATERLOO REGION — A silver lining of COVID-19 is more people are likely to get a flu shot this year.

The pandemic brought into sharp focus the “devastating potential of viruses” and people are eager to protect themselves from getting sick with influenza, said Prof. Nancy Waite at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy.

Pharmacies, doctor offices and public health are all preparing for a busy flu season as people are likely to be eager to take advantage of the vaccine that is available to boost their chances of staying healthy.

“We are preparing for some heightened interest,” said Kristy Wright, manager of infectious disease for Region of Waterloo Public Health.

In Australia where the flu season has already overlapped with COVID-19, some pharmacy chains are reporting 180 per cent more flu shots being given early in the season.

The UW research team surveyed Canadians over 50 and even those who didn’t get a flu shot in previous years said they were more likely to get vaccinated this year. Some of their reasons included increased awareness about how serious viruses can be, and the worry that getting the flu would make them more susceptible to COVID-19.

A small percentage said they were less likely to get the flu shot because they didn’t want to risk being exposed to COVID-19 while getting vaccinated, and self-isolation made it less likely they’d catch the flu anyway.

Waite said health-care providers will take extra precautions this year, including wearing personal protective equipment, to reduce the COVID risk. Special clinics or even drive-thru flu shots may be options offered as well to ensure it’s convenient and safe to get vaccinated.

“A lot of thought is going into how to do it better this year,” Waite said. “There’s still a lot to figure out.”

New this year, the high-dose shot for seniors will also be available at pharmacies.

The flu season typically gets going in November or December, and Waite said it’s best to get a flu shot as early as possible because it takes a couple weeks for full protection.

Flu shots usually start being offered after Thanksgiving, and Wright said at this point there’s no concern about having enough vaccine in Ontario even with more people wanting to get immunized.

Limiting the flu’s spread in the community will help protect those who are more vulnerable to respiratory viruses, which is especially important this year to hopefully avoid them getting sick with both influenza and COVID-19.

“Obviously that would be very serious,” Wright said.

It will also put less strain on the local health-care system, which is already busy managing COVID-19.

The flu season is always a bit of a wild card, with some years being more severe than others, and it’s always tough to know what to expect for the upcoming season. This winter may see fewer cases because of all the measures in place for COVID prevention.

“Presumably that could help to reduce the transmission of any respiratory virus,” Wright said.

Public health will host the same number of family clinics as previous years, only with some added precautions to keep everyone safe. Those are held in November for families with children under five who can’t be vaccinated at a pharmacy.

The possibility of more people getting vaccinated for the flu is welcomed by public health, especially since the number of doses distributed in the region has been stable for the past few years.

“We would love that,” Wright said. “The flu vaccine is always a bit of a hard sell.”

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She explained that the effectiveness varies from season to season, which can make it difficult to understand the value. Plus, a shot is needed every year and that’s a big hurdle for some.

This year, people who don’t usually get a flu shot may reconsider after living for months under the cloud of COVID-19. Some may think their coronavirus precautions shield them from picking up the flu virus, but Waite cautioned that bubbles can be “leaky.”

“It may not be what you’re doing, but it may be what the people around you are doing.”

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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