In the Press

December 9, 2021 – Global funding for tuberculosis (TB) research hit $915 million in 2020, but still amounts to less than half the annual goal of $2 billion set by member states at the United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End TB in 2018, per a new report released today by Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Stop TB Partnership. The report, Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends 2005–2020, presents new data on 2020 funding and analyzes trends since 2005. While TB has ceded its position as the world’s deadliest infectious disease to COVID-19, it continues to kill 1.5 million people each year.

A subvariant of the Omicron variant, BA.2, is poised to cause an uptick in COVID-19 cases in the United States in the coming weeks, warned chief White House medical adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, MD, yesterday on ABC News.

Research suggests that alcohol consumption and related harms increased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies reported increases in drinking to cope with stress,1 transplants for alcohol-associated liver disease,2 and emergency department visits for alcohol withdrawal.3 We examined mortality data to assess whether alcohol-related deaths increased during the pandemic as well.

Researchers have identified a link suggesting that lithium could decrease the risk of developing dementia, which affects nearly one million people in the UK.

Children previously infected with COVID-19 develop natural circulating antibodies that last for at least seven months, according to a new study led by researchers at UTHealth Houston.

Airborne bacteria in the indoor environment are the confirmed or presumed causative agents of several infectious diseases, and their components are linked to the development and exacerbation of chronic respiratory illness including asthma

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines provide protection against COVID-19 hospitalization among adults. However, how well mRNA vaccines protect against the most severe outcomes of COVID-19–related illness, including use of invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) or death, is uncertain.

The East African nation of Malawi on Monday will launch a mass vaccination campaign against polio, organizers say, the first of four planned rounds of vaccination in the region meant to prevent the spread of the crippling virus.

Wild birds can be infected with HPAI and show no signs of illness. They can carry the disease to new areas when migrating, potentially exposing domestic poultry to the virus.

There was a marked reduction in antimicrobial use throughout Japan in 2020.