Europe

EU backs second COVID booster for over-60s, before variant-adapted vaccines are ready European Union health agencies on Monday recommended a second COVID-19 booster for everyone over 60, as well as medically vulnerable people, amid a new rise in infections and hospitalisations across Europe. Natalie Grover,Francesco Guarascio Reuters

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Study on monkeypox outbreak shows differing symptoms All but 3 of 52  patients had lesions and rashes on their genitals or anal regions. CIDRAP

A new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that the clinical profile in recent monkeypox cases is different than in past events, with fatigue and fever less common and genital skin lesions more likely.

Europe is at the center of a resurgence in Covid-19 infections as more people mix at large-scale events and travel, according to the World Health Organization. 

“We are seeing a much more intense wave of the disease passing through Europe again,” Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said at a media briefing Wednesday. “And we will see it happen elsewhere -- we are already seeing it in South East Asia and in the eastern Mediterranean region as well.”

Overall, the number of Covid infections rose 30% globally in the past two weeks, with the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 driving the increase in Europe and the US. The agency said it was also following a new sublineage of subvariant BA2.75 which had been detected in India. 

The increase in cases in Europe during the summer -- when transmission should be more difficult because people are outside -- results from people swapping one kind of mixing for another, such as attending large concerts and traveling more, Ryan said.