Nicola Low

🧪 #SISS2025 coming up, 15:40 in Shanghai - panel on strategic priorities, advocacy, policy, guidelines

#mustread Our policy analysis about what it takes to push syphilis and other STI up the policy agenda

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38262...

🧪 Shanghai International Syphilis Symposium #SISS2025 is live online, 20-22 October, 2025

Use the link below to watch live - agenda is also visible - for the amazing speaker lineup

view.csslcloud.net/api/view/ind...

🙏 @gatesfoundation.bsky.social

🧪 #SISS2025 syphilis in indigenous populations
“There will be no elimination of syphilis or congenital syphilis without addressing the inequities facing Indigenous Peoples everywhere. We can and must close those gaps - starting now”

Patty Garcia, Peru

🧪 #SISS2025
Syphilis in indigenous populations

“We will never eliminate syphilis in Latin America if we do not address inequalities”

Amazing Patty Garcia straight-talking

A neglected disease in neglected populations

🧪 Shanghai International Syphilis Symposium 2025 #SISS2025

Extraordinary group of experts

Great opener, Remco Peters WHO with a leitmotif

❗️all syphilis epidemics are not the same
❗️programmes for prevention management treatment need to be specific

Kicking off 3 solid days talking Syphilis at the Shanghai International Syphilis Symposium.

Covering epidemiology, diagnostics, treatment, vaccines and more with experts from around the world to drive forward the public health agenda.

Sessions online for those not able to be here in person.

The anti-vax, anti-public health dark money group, The Brownstone Institute, is on BlueSky as of yesterday.

It joined up the same day Politico revealed that its founders had allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior at their workplace: the American Institute for Economic Research.

🧪 🤞 for end to #Ebola outbreak in Bulape. #WHO and #DRC acted quickly
❕first deployment of Intensive Infectious Disease Treatment Module

❕>35 000 people vaccinated against Ebola

“If no new cases are detected, the outbreak will be declared over in early December 2025.”

Last Ebola patient in Democratic Republic of the Congo discharged The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was discharged today, marking an important milestone in the efforts to end the outbreak.

Last Ebola patient in DRC’s current outbreak was discharged from hospital today.
That means 42 day period starts today. If no new infections occur during that time the outbreak is officially over. 🤞

www.afro.who.int/news/last-eb...

Happy Diwali, the festival of lights in India, depicted with lit lamps

Happy Diwali 🪔 to all

The world needs more light, compassion and peace

Millions across all 50 US states march in No Kings protests against Trump Crowds of Americans, many in costumes, aligned behind message that US is sliding into authoritarianism

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

NIGHTS OF AMERICA

DAY 18 OCTOBER 2025

TODAY .. #NOKINGS

TODAY
OVER 7 MILLION OF YOU
MARCHED IN PEACEFUL PROTEST

SO PROUD OF EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU

I THANK YOU SO MUCH

INSPIRATION AND HOPE

THANK YOU TO nokings.org

THANK YOU TO PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD WHO JOINED
THANK YOU!!!

“I live on the line, and line feels like a ledge, when operatives are trying to destroy your country from within. The Civil War and the Cold War never ended, and oligarchs and plutocrats won both.”
Author, Sarah Kendzior
@sarahkendzior.bsky.social
in the book,
They Knew

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Los Angeles County Reports 3 (locally acquired) Clade I Mpox Cases in a Week #18,912 While the threat from an emerging Clade Ib Mpox virus was announced more than a year (see Aug 2024's  WHO Declares Mpox A PHEIC )...

AFD Blog `Los Angeles County Reports 3 (locally acquired) Clade I #Mpox Cases in a Week' afludiary.blogspot.com/2025/10/los-...

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit … look away now Club and Penguin bars are now ‘chocolate flavour’ after owner McVitie’s cuts cocoa content amid soaring prices If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit you can no longer join our Club or pick up a Penguin, as the lunchbox favourites have reduced the amount of cocoa in their recipe so much they are now only “chocolate flavour”. The two snacks, both made by McVitie’s, changed their recipes earlier this year amid soaring cocoa prices – which have prompted manufacturers to try a number of different tactics to keep prices down. Continue reading...

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit … look away now

Monochrome photograph of a group of four women standing in a line, three women in dresses one in a suit

Frida Kalho challenged conventions from a young age, here aged 17 dressed in a suit in a family photo. She also participated in boxing and other sports and was part of a rebellious gang at her school #WomensArt

A curator (aka editor) who coordinates peer review, publication of the paper on a new website, endorsement of a subset of articles, and assignment of a new DOI to a VOR. Struggling a bit to see how this differs from traditional journals (or at least F1000R). www.sciencecolab.org/biophysics-c...

Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro

Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...

So this interview lasted 2 hours so this “you’re scaring me” part might seem like an overreaction or fearmongering to someone without that context.

There’s a lot of evidence to support my hypothesis that a potential H5N1 pandemic would be worse than COVID.

Photo of a cityscape with a focus on a large multistorey building with a huge mural of a winding plant with pink blossoms against a brown background

Mona Caron, contemporary Swiss-born, San Francisco-based artist, known for her large scale murals #WomensArt

a black and white photo of a woman wearing a flower in her hair and earrings . ALT: a black and white photo of a woman wearing a flower in her hair and earrings .

Happy Friday all 🧡
Thank you for following xx

First locally acquired US case of more severe clade 1 #mpox identified in California

The clade 1 case is the nation's first in a person with no recent travel history and the seventh clade 1 case in the country.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/m...

🧪 wow, this is getting complicated

#azithromycin did not ⬇️ #InfantMortality

Designed to test WHO “conditional guidelines… consideration of mass administration of azithromycin to infants 1 to 11 months of age in high-mortality settings”

Extremely well-reported

Beware #SubgroupAnalysis

Randomized trial in Mali finds mass azithromycin distribution doesn't reduce deaths in infants

Mass azithromycin use to reduce childhood deaths in Africa found that the practice did not result in lower mortality in infants 1 to 11 months old

www.cidrap.umn.edu/a...

🧪 #PublicHealthIsPolitics
Hope that the rhetorical 🚩 and lineup are enough of a warning

Active repudiation definitely needed. So thanks @angierasmussen.bsky.social

@martinmckee.bsky.social @chrischirp.bsky.social @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social @kakape.bsky.social

MEHA:Make Europe Healthy Again

Dear European colleagues, I strongly advise you to forcefully repudiate this initiative before they end up in a position to influence policy. Let me know if I can help.

meh
😬

To learn more about @defendpublichealth.bsky.social join our town hall Oct 28 and hear from the one and only Dr. @pauloffit.bsky.social!

And if you want to get involved: www.defendpublichealth.org/home

actionnetwork.org/events/defen..

Three monochrome photographs, one at the top shows the head and shoulders of a white woman with short dark hair and striped top looking out to the viewer, bottom left image shows a stylish round metal teapot and image to the right reflects a tall metal coffee pot

Marianne Brandt (1893-1983), designer from the Bauhaus school, head of the Bauhaus Metal Workshop in 1927, pioneer of modern design #WomensArt