Following is a summary of current health news briefs.
Chinese COVID testing firms report big profits as virus fight intensifies
Several of China’s largest medical testing companies have posted big increases in profit for the first three quarters of the year, as the country’s strict zero-COVID policy boosts spending in a minority of sectors while depressing the broader economy. Over the past two weeks, at least six such companies have reported a soaring jump in earnings.
Moderna COVID vaccine sales forecasts fall short for 2022, 2023
Moderna Inc on Thursday cut its 2022 COVID-19 vaccine sales forecast, citing regulatory and production delays, and issued a 2023 outlook for the shots well below Wall Street estimates, and its shares fell as much as 9% before recovering. It expects $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion in sales from signed COVID vaccine contracts for next year, while analysts’ estimates were at $9.5 billion.
New U.S. cancer drug prices rise 53% in five years -report
The annual price of a newly-launched cancer drug in the United States averaged $283,000 last year, a 53% increase from 2017, according to a new report from U.S. Democratic Representative Katie Porter, a consumer bankruptcy law professor running for re-election in California. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, oncology treatments are nearly four times as costly as other therapies and are largely paid for by taxpayer-funded programs like the government’s Medicare plan for people over age 65, the report notes.
Pfizer, BioNTech start COVID-flu combination vaccine study
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE have started an early-stage study to evaluate a combination vaccine targeting COVID-19 and influenza, the companies said on Thursday. The single-dose vaccine candidate is a combination of Pfizer’s mRNA-based flu shot and the companies’ Omicron-tailored COVID-19 booster shot.
Analysis-Wanted: an oxygen monitor reliable for all races
Medical device makers and scientists are working on new technologies to improve widely-used devices that assess potential heart and respiratory problems given mounting evidence that current ones could lead to inadequate healthcare for patients with darker skin. Doctors have long known that pulse oximeters are less accurate in estimating blood oxygen levels in non-white patients, but the discrepancies were considered insignificant. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed some of the real dangers of these flaws, as the devices gave falsely high oxygen readings in patients with dark skin.
Spain detects two bird flu infections in poultry farm workers
Two Spanish poultry farm workers tested positive for bird flu following an outbreak in poultry, in what appears to be the first known human infections in Spain and the second in Europe since 2003, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The poultry outbreak was confirmed by authorities on Sept. 20 and there has been no evidence to date of human-to-human transmission related to this event, the WHO said.
Teva to pay up to $4.2 billion in U.S. to settle opioid claims
Teva Pharmaceuticals will pay up to $4.2 billion in the United States to settle claims related to its role in fueling the country’s opioid crisis, New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Thursday. The company will pay $523 million to New York state to settle claims in the state, James said.
Uganda says Ebola outbreak death toll rises to 48
The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in Uganda has risen to 48, with 131 confirmed cases, a health official involved in managing the outbreak said on Thursday. Last week Uganda’s health minister put the death toll at 30, with 109 confirmed cases.
Father blames China’s COVID policy for son’s death that sparked online anger
The father of a 3-year-old boy who died on Tuesday from carbon monoxide poisoning in northwest China said strict COVID-19 policies “indirectly killed” his son by causing delays obtaining treatment, in a case that has sparked social media outrage. The boy’s death is the latest incident to trigger blowback over China’s strict zero-COVID policy, with one critical hashtag racking up 380 million reads on Wednesday on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
‘Considerable’ monkeypox transmission happens before symptoms, study suggests
Monkeypox can spread before symptoms appear, British researchers said on Wednesday, providing the first evidence indicating the virus can be transmitted this way. It was previously thought that monkeypox was almost entirely spread by people who were already sick, although pre-symptomatic transmission had not been ruled out and some routine screening had picked up cases without symptoms.
(With inputs from agencies.)
