BK. Titanji

As a women who has had several PAP smears. It is an uncomfortable and painful procedure. A highly effective and less invasive diagnostic modality will be very welcome by all individuals who have a cervix!

Cervical cancer prevention is already one of medicine’s greatest successes thanks to HPV vaccination and screening.
Innovations like this could help close the remaining gap, especially for women who never make it into the clinic.

There are still questions. This was a diagnostic accuracy study in one region of China, among women with regular cycles. Implementation, cost, and real-world screening uptake still need to be tested. But the concept is compelling.

Many women skip screening because pelvic exams are uncomfortable, stigmatized, inaccessible, or simply logistically difficult. A self-collected menstrual sample could make screening: less invasive, easier to access and scalable in low-resource settings.

Women with positive tests or abnormal cytology underwent colposcopy with biopsy to confirm disease. The results were striking.
For detecting high-grade cervical lesions (CIN2+):
- Menstrual blood HPV test sensitivity: 94.7%
- Standard cervical HPV test: 92.1%

Testing menstrual blood for human papillomavirus during cervical cancer screening in China: cross sectional population based study Objective To compare the diagnostic accuracy of minipad collected menstrual blood versus clinician collected cervical samples to test for human papillomavirus (HPV) in the detection of cervical intrae...

This is a remarkable study. A simple sanitary pad could transform cervical cancer screening. Researchers enrolled 3,000+ women (age 20–54) & compared 2 approaches:
Standard clinician-collected cervical HPV test
HPV testing from menstrual blood collected on a sanitary pad
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Vaccine effectiveness of a bivalent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pre-F vaccine against RSV-associated hospital admission among adults aged 75–79 years in England: a multicentre, test-negative, ca... This study provides evidence that the RSV pre-F vaccine is highly effective against RSV-associated hospital admissions, including exacerbations of chronic disease, and in adults with immunosuppression...

In 75-79 year olds in UK, the RSV Pre-F vaccine remains highly effective in the real world. 82.3% vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization due to RSV-associated acute respiratory infection and 86.7% effectiveness against severe disease requiring oxygen
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Terrifying is an apt description. It's really sad to witness.

It's important to note that all programs to resettle refugees from these countries have effectively be halted except for White South Africans. Visa processing and travel restrictions also target many of these countries.

So far only Zimbabwe and Zambia have pushed back. It is very sad to see a return to colonial models of aid funding which seek to plunder and exploit vulnerable populations. Aid is not always good, sometimes aid can cause harm if it is rooted in exploitation.

Countries in Africa which have agreed to new health aid packages contingent on greater access to minerals and sharing the sensitive health information of Africans.

The new controversial health funding aid packages which are replacing USAID to align with America first agenda of the current administration are reportedly linked to granting US greater access to mineral resources and harvesting sensitive health data of Africans w little reciprocity or protections

Ivermectin is making a post-pandemic comeback, among cancer patients The anti-parasitic drug became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now being embraced as an alternative treatment for cancer. It is as politically polarizing as ever.

The mass psychosis over Ivermectin as a "cure all" miracle drug did not end w COVID. It's being embraced as a cure for cancer in right wing circles.
If you have scabies or a parasitic worm infection it ivermectin helps.
It is NOT effective chemotherapy for any cancer!
www.npr.org/2026/03/02/n...

and their work on poxviruses. I didn't feel too bad because my external examiner did not know who Luria and Bertani were either. Robin Weiss was a pioneer in virology and is most famous for his work on retroviruses and identifying CD4 on lymphocytes as the binding receptor for HIV.

A fun anecdote is he asked me during my viva" Do you know who Luria and Bertani were?" because I had many cloning experiments in my thesis and LB broth was cited many times in my methods.
My answer was "the guys who made the broth"? 🙃"
He then went to enlighten me on the Nobel winning virologists

Sad to hear about the death of Robin Weiss. I was the last PhD candidate he examined at UCL as an internal examiner. As stressful as a viva can be, he put me right at ease and though his questions were probing he was kind and thoughtful. The three hours were a breeze.

The EMA has issued a positive scientific opinion on acoziborole, a major step toward regulatory approval in endemic countries. Sanofi has pledged to donate the drug to WHO for distribution FREE of charge. That’s critical for a dz of extreme poverty where cost and access define real-world impact.

This is what real global health progress looks like: incremental, evidence-based, field-tested innovation that makes implementation feasible. If deployment is funded and sustained, acoziborole could push gambiense HAT from “controlled” to truly eliminated as a public health problem.

Sustained surveillance, active case finding, diagnostic capacity, and tsetse control remain essential for elimination. There are still unanswered questions about asymptomatic reservoirs and transmission dynamics. But simplification of treatment removes one of the biggest logistical bottlenecks.

As cases have fallen (<1,000 reported globally in recent years), the remaining cases are harder to find often in remote, low-resource settings. A single-dose oral regimen enables screen-and-treat campaigns without lumbar punctures or complex infrastructure. Easing the “last mile” of elimination.

Human African trypanosomiasis, is a tsetse-fly–transmitted parasitic disease that is uniformly fatal if untreated. For decades, treatment required staging with lumbar puncture and either toxic arsenic derivatives or prolonged IV regimens. Even fexinidazole still required 10days of oral therapy.

‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication European regulators greenlight new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of an ancient burden

In today's good news a single dose drug for sleeping sickness that could completely change the elimination game. Dare I hope for eradication!
Acoziborole administered as a single oral dose was ~95% effective across both early and late-stage disease in RCTs.
www.science.org/content/arti...

CIDRAP Op-Ed: The HPV vaccine prevents cancer. The new ACIP wants to re-examine that.

Let's not forget that this highly and durably effective vaccine which is on track to eliminate cervical cancer in countries that adopted it early and have had good up take is the next target on RFK.Jr's ACIP list.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/human-papill...

Extended follow-up of invasive cervical cancer risk after quadrivalent HPV vaccination: nationwide, register based study Objectives To evaluate the long term risk of invasive cervical cancer after receiving the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, how risk varies by time since vaccination, and to assess the ...

The HPV vaccine is durably AMAZING.A massive Swedish registry study w 18 years of follow-up found no waning protection against invasive cervical cancer. If vaccinated before age 17, cancer risk is cut by ~80%. Even those vaccinated later still had substantial protection.
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Measles in America: US set to lose elimination status after cases soar The “land of the free” is almost no longer free of measles, with the US all but certain to lose its elimination certification for the disease after a surge of new infections in January. Outbreaks of ...

Yup all but certain now. Will be made official at the PAHO meeting next month.
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

I think it is absolutely scandalous that in just one year of an HHS under the leadership RFK.Jr the US has lost its Measles elimination status and is now on track to do same for perinatally acquired Hepatitis B. These are huge public health wins that took years to accomplish.

US Newborn Hepatitis B Virus Vaccination Rates This study examines US trends in newborn hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination rates from 2017 to August 2025, including changes in vaccination trends beginning in July 2023.

HBV elimination is uniquely fragile because you only get one chance to prevent perinatally acquired infection i.e. the day of birth. This is just the latest example of how the aggressive anti-vaccine rhetoric promoted by RFK.Jr led HHS is eroding public health gains.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

If sustained, we should expect:
- ↑ perinatal HBV transmission
- ↑ pediatric chronic HBV cohorts emerging in ~5–10 yrs
- reversal of U.S. HBV elimination trajectory, widening disparities (declines typically concentrate in vulnerable systems)

When national vaccine messaging becomes inconsistent, the first measurable signal appears in newborn vaccination programs historically the most stable coverage domain.
This declines in uptake for effective and proven vaccines is a warning indicator.

Parents increasingly question:
“Why vaccinate if mom is HBsAg negative?”
That argument ignores several important points:
1. Imperfect prenatal testing,
2. Documentation gaps,
postnatal exposures,
3. The fundamental population-prevention logic of universal birth dosing.

U.S. Newborn Hepatitis B Vaccination Rates Plunge, Reversing Years of Gains National data show rates dropped more than 10 points in 2 years after 2023 peak

U.S. birth-dose hepatitis B vaccination coverage has dropped sharply more than a 10-percentage-point decline in ~2 years, reversing several years of progress.
Approximate numbers reported:
~83–84% coverage (2023)
~73% coverage (2025)
www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...