Health | WPN World People News

Two All of Us team members begin the process to collect a blood sample from a participant.

A person receives the seasonal influenza vaccine (flu shot).

Graph of somatic changes over time.

The overdose-reversing drug naloxone saves lives – but only if it’s readily available when an overdose occurs.

Allergies can be life-threatening when they cause anaphylaxis, an extreme reaction with constriction of the airways and a sudden drop in blood pressure. Scientists have identified a subtype of immune cell that drives the production of antibodies(link is external) associated with anaphylaxis and other allergic reactions. The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and reveals a potential target for new therapies to prevent severe allergic reactions.

A novel experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a leading cause of severe respiratory illness in the very young and the old, has shown early promise in a Phase 1 clinical trial. The candidate, DS-Cav1, was engineered and developed by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, who were guided by their atomic-level understanding of the shape of an RSV protein. An interim analysis of study data showed that one dose of the investigational vaccine prompted large increases in RSV-neutralizing antibodies that were sustained for several months.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has sent a dozen staffers to a Democratic Republic of Congo border city to manage Ebola cases there. The outbreak, which began a year ago has now killed more than 1,800 people. The agency indicated it would send more staffers if armed conflict in the northeastern region subsided to safer levels.

On August 1, 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ministry of Health declared an outbreak of Ebola. One year later, the outbreak continues in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, areas where there are outbreaks of violence, armed conflict, and other unprecedented problems that complicate public health response activities and increase the risk of disease spread both within DRC and to neighboring countries. As of July 31, a total of 2,713 cases, including 148 in healthcare workers, and 1,813 deaths have been reported.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health developed a new mouse model that could improve the translation of research in mice into advances in human health. The mouse model, which the scientists called “wildling,” acquired the microbes and pathogens of wild mice, while maintaining the laboratory mice’s genetics that make them more useful for research. In two preclinical studies, wildlings mirrored human immune responses, where lab mice failed to do so.