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What is driving Bolivia’s worst dengue crisis in 25 years?
Field hospitals open in Santa Cruz to help ease the burden engulfing its medical centres
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/what-driving-bolivias-worst-dengue-crisis-25-years/
On a pharmacy storefront in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, eastern Bolivia, a sign bears an image of a man clutching his forehead and cartoon mosquitoes whizzing nearby.
“If the fever and pain doesn’t stop, try paracetamol,” it reads – a reminder that, in the thick of the country's worst dengue fever outbreak for 25 years, a vaccine or even relief remains wanting.
Bolivia’s Ministry of Health has reported more than 11,000 cases of the disease, while 33 people have died, mostly children. Multiple regions, including Santa Cruz and La Paz, are now under a red epidemiological alert.
Late last week, a field hospital opened in Plan 3000, a neighbourhood in central Santa Cruz, with 30 beds set up in a sports field to help share the burden now engulfing its medical centres.
Ninety doctors have been dispatched there to both provide on-site care and carry out house calls nearby; hundreds more have been placed on emergency duty in the city’s hospitals.
Dengue haemorrhagic fever, the severe form of the illness that can lead to organ failure, internal bleeding and death, has quadrupled in the past 30 years, infecting 400 million annually.
Spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also transmits yellow fever, Zika and Chikungunya, dengue virus kills 20,000 globally each year.
While predominantly associated with southeast Asia, its spread in Latin America (Peru has this year seen a 72 per cent rise in cases) is in part due to population density, as the mosquito is highly adapted to urban environments and breeds inside homes.
Hospitals ‘absolutely overwhelmed’
Global warming, which creates more temperate conditions in which they can thrive, is also a major factor in this worldwide rise; so too is the post-pandemic travel boom, which has seen a spike in mosquito-borne diseases crossing borders.
The primary prevention method is eliminating the mosquito but, with fumigation efforts taking place across Bolivia failing to slow soaring case numbers, the lack of effective tools available to authorities is becoming painfully apparent.
Bolivia’s hospitals are “absolutely overwhelmed,” says Neelika Malavige, head of the Dengue Global Program at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.
The fatality rate has jumped significantly this time around, she adds: 0.3 per cent, compared to 0.04 per cent in 2020, with data suggesting that it is being driven by DENV-2 – the same dengue strain that caused the largest-ever outbreaks in Asia between 2016 to 2019.
“This would have happened earlier if not for Covid-19 resulting in reduced international travel in years 2020 and 2021,” Malavige explains. “Unfortunately, more virulent dengue virus strains are emerging, which leads to massive outb
Some health experts believe the collateral damage from hospitals cancelling and delaying treatment to focus on Covid is behind a huge spike in excess deaths, raising the possibility that lockdowns caused more harm to public health than the virus itself.
The revelations will anger families who lost loved ones in care homes and will fuel criticism that adult social care was neglected during the pandemic.
More than 45,000 care home residents died with Covid in England and Wales during the first two years of the pandemic, with many people feeling the sector was abandoned.
There was also an increase in deaths from causes other than Covid. Overall mortality rates in English care homes jumped by 79 per cent in the first 16 weeks of the pandemic, and by April the risk of death for a care home resident was 17 times higher than for someone else of the same age living at home.
Ms Whately later warned Mr Han**** that the elderly were at risk of “just giving up” because they had been isolated for so long.
Care homes were the setting for one of the biggest catastrophes of the pandemic after thousands of people were moved into them without being tested. The messages reveal Mr Han**** was repeatedly warned that care homes were becoming a problem.
The disclosures raise questions about the position Mr Han**** has adopted publicly. He has previously said that he put a “protective ring around care homes” from the start and that he followed scientific advice.Mr Han**** said in his book, Pandemic Diaries, that the “tragic but honest truth” at the start of April was that “we don’t have enough testing capacity”.
The WhatsApp messages leaked to The Telegraph include one-to-one conversations between ministers at the heart of government.
They were handed to The Telegraph by Isabel Oakeshott, the political journalist who was given copies of Mr Han****’s messages while working on his Pandemic Diaries memoir. She writes for The Telegraph explaining her reasons for making the information public, saying, with reference to the Covid inquiry: “We absolutely cannot wait any longer for answers”.
Reacting to The Telegraph's report on Tuesday night, the broadcaster Piers Morgan said: "Astonishing & utterly damning scoop. And we do deserve to know."
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said: "If details about how Han**** was more bothered about hitting his target on testing by possibly wasting tests that led to less capacity in care homes is true, then imagine how those who lost loved ones in that week will feel."
"With this lot its always headlines before front lines."
The Telegraph will reveal how children’s education was sacrificed in order to avoid political confrontations; how isolation rules that brought the economy to its knees could have been lifted sooner and how the Government sought to frighten the public to ensure they complied with lockdown.
Inquiry timing criticised
The public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic began earlier this week, but has been criticised because it will not address the reasons for lockdown decisions until its second module – meaning any findings are unlikely to be released for years.
The leaked cache of data will raise serious questions over how Mr Johnson’s administration handled the crisis.
The messages will inevitably stir debate over the Government’s repeated claims it was always following the science when it took decisions about tackling the pandemic. The UK has seen a death toll of more than 216,000 to date, while the economy suffered a shock from which it is struggling to recover.
Government guidance in its “admission and care of people care homes” document was not updated to require care homes to test new admissions from the community until Aug 14, 2020. It was early July before staff in all care homes had regular access to weekly tests.
Mr Han**** later told the health and social care select committee that “the strongest route of the virus into care homes, unfortunately, is community transmission, so it was staff testing that was most important thing for keeping people safe in care homes”.
In addition, Mr Han**** did not adopt Sir Chris’s advice to “recommend” segregation for everyone. The guidance stated that care homes “may wish” to isolate residents admitted from the community “after discussion with the new resident and family” – adding that the “majority” will have come from isolation at home.
The then health secretary has since said that “the vast majority of infections were brought in from the wider community” and highlighted staff as the main source of transmission.
An independent report by the Department of Health and Social Care has also found that there was “potential exposure to Covid-19 in care home settings” from factors including “new admissions from the community”.
On April 24, 2020, a civil servant in Matt Han****'s private office sent him a WhatsApp message passing on scientific advice that his department should “prioritise testing of asymptomatic staff and residents” in care homes where there had been a coronavirus outbreak.
Mr Han**** responded: “This is ok so long as it does not get in the way of actually fulfilling the capacity in testing.”
The WhatsApp messages also reveal how some care homes refused to test staff for the virus at the height of the pandemic in case they discovered they were positive, and they show comments by the social care minister, Helen Whately, where she warns that restrictions on visitors to care homes are “inhumane” – months before they were finally lifted.
They also contain evidence as to how Mr Han**** reached the target by including in the tally large numbers of tests that he knew might never be processed.
The WhatsApp messages expose how, as early as April 2020, Sir Chris warned there should be “testing of all going into care homes”.
The comments about care home testing by the Chief Medical Officer were discussed on April 14, 2020, the day before the Government published its “Covid 19: adult social care action plan” – a document that set out to fix some of the problems created by the Government at the very start of the pandemic.
In a WhatsApp conversation about its finer details, Mr Han**** told his advisers: “Chris Whitty has done an evidence review and now recommend testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result. This is obviously a good positive step & we must put into the doc.”
One of his aides, Allan Nixon, responded that he had sent the request “to action”.
However, by the end of the day Mr Han**** appeared to have changed his mind – and he requested the removal of the commitment to begin testing admissions from the community.
At 6.23pm, Mr Nixon sent a message saying: “Just to check: officials are saying your steer is to *remove* the commitment to testing on admission to care homes *from the community*, but *keep* commitment to testing on admission to care homes *from hospital*. Is that right?”
Twenty-five minutes later, he messaged again: “Update: we can say in the doc that it’s our ambition to test everyone going into a care home from the community where care homes want (‘in the comings weeks’ is the suggested timeframe I’ve been told).”
Mr Han**** responded: “Tell me if I’m wrong but I would rather leave it out and just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital. I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters.”
When the Government published its official guidance to care homes in England the following day, it said it would start testing all “those being discharged [into care homes] from hospital” – but only that it would “move to” testing people being admitted to care homes from the community.
It did not make it mandatory to test residents going into care homes from the wider community – with Mr Han**** saying that “muddies the waters”. Nor did it make mandatory the testing of all care home staff, or the isolation of all new residents.
The Lockdown Files: Matt Han**** rejected expert advice on care home testing, WhatsApp messages reveal
Huge leak reveals conversations from 100,000 texts, showing how then health secretary did not follow Sir Chris Whitty’s tough line
Matt Han**** rejected the Chief Medical Officer’s advice to test for Covid all residents going into English care homes, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph reveal.
Prof Sir Chris Whitty told the then health secretary early in April 2020, about a month into the pandemic, that there should be testing for “all going into care homes”. But Mr Han**** did not follow that guidance, telling his advisers that it “muddies the waters”.
Instead, he introduced guidance that made testing mandatory for those entering care homes from hospital, but not for those coming from the community. Prior to the guidance, care homes had been told that negative tests were not required even for hospital patients. The guidance stating that those coming in from the community should be tested was eventually introduced on Aug 14.
Between April 17 and August 13, 2020, a total of 17,678 people died of Covid in care homes in England.
In the first two years of the pandemic, there were more than 40,000 Covid deaths in care homes in England, as the most vulnerable in society bore the brunt of the fatalities.
Mr Han**** himself later told MPs that transmission from the community – particularly from staff - was the “strongest route” for Covid into care homes.
The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health secretary and other ministers and officials at the height of the pandemic.
The messages comprise 2.3million words - three times as many words as the King James Bible contains.
The communications span the years of the pandemic and reveal discussions between the then health secretary and those at the heart of the decision-making process, including the then prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Other conversations involve Sir Chris, the Government's Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser.
The messaging groups have names such as “Top Teams”, “Covid 19 senior group” and “crisis management” – the name of a group created to deal with the fallout from Mr Han****’s relationship with his aide, Gina Coladangelo.
Over the coming days, the Telegraph will reveal the messages, which lay bare the extent to which groupthink among aides and ministers affected pandemic decisions.
The messages also reveal the often casual approach that ministers took to making major decisions, including the call to close classrooms, introduce face masks in schools and provide testing in care homes.
They show how Mr Han**** expressed concerns that expanding testing in care home could "get in the way" of his self-imposed target of 100,000 Covid tests per day.
Kaeren
Totally agree, the website is appalling, still waiting for the Clonit tests to appear, however a new platform has been promised soon.
I just get tired go people whinging about the Twitter posts inferring that that's all the Sales and Marketing department do.
Twitter is not their main channel for sales and marketing. The Novacyt sales and marketing team shall be communicating directly with not just potential, but all existing customers, just like any other company.
Have to wonder how many Co-Prep we've actually SOLD? My guess would not be very many and I bet we've given a few a way for free, therefore not convinced that an acquisition of Veon Scientific would be a wise move.
I have doubts as to whether the company was right to acquire IT-IS International, more than two years since the acquisition, no new products and sales appear to have slumped, I guess due to the collapse in demand for COVID testing. There's plenty Q machines available upon eBay right now, I've seen Q32 for £1500.
Here we go again...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/24/who-bird-flu-vaccine-stop-rapidly-spreading-mutation/
Health chiefs commission new jab for humans in response to the growth of the dominant form of H5N1 virus worldwide.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has ordered a new bird flu vaccine to be created in response to the rapid spread of the dominant form of H5N1 avian influenza worldwide.
The UKHSA is also looking into bird flu lateral flow tests, documents show, as well as investigating what is the best lab-based test to pick up the virus.
One of the scenarios being investigated by officials is if the virus is relatively mild, with an infection fatality rate of 0.25 per cent, similar to Covid.
The most severe hypothesis is if the virus is as deadly in people as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, with a fatality rate of around 2.5 per cent, and a hospitalisation rate of one in 20.
Some estimates of bird flu’s fatality rate in humans are as high as 60 per cent but experts say this may be misleading and inflated by sampling bias from when H5N1 first emerged 20 years ago.
The modelling marks an escalation in preparedness by health authorities as the country’s worst ever bird flu outbreak continues to ravage poultry farmers and wild bird colonies alike.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/23/covid-style-model-bird-flu-pandemic-drawn-health-officials/
Covid-style model for bird flu pandemic drawn up by health officials