Excess winter mortality in Europe is back to pre-pandemic levels. Although interestingly southern countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy) experienced higher excess than the other countries.

The methodology in our new preprint medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
enables highly sensitive genotyping of #Measlesvirus (MV) from #wastewater . We detected the presence of MV genotype D8 in wastewater samples of Brussels (North) during 3 consecutive weeks, indicating substantial viral…

We will have great talks by Richard Neher; Sylvain Brisse; Johanna Hanefeld; Eamonn O'Moore; and other excellent scientists 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻rki.de/rkc

One of the highlights of our visit in Kirstenbosch. Does anyone know what this orange and black bug is called with its very distinctive two black dots on its back?

Wow. What a win for a Italy. Well deserved.

New! ECDC exceedance analysis by Nerlander L & al. of #gonorrhoea surveillance data from #EU_EEA countries indicates that exceedance started in May 2022 in 🚺aged 20–24 and in August 2022 in 🚺aged 15-19 and was detected in most months between July 2022 and June 2023

Interesting update from AGES on ongoing measles outbreak in Austria.
Up to 2024-02-27, there were 167 confirmed cases (compared to 186 for the whole of 2023).
Of 158 cases with data, 33(21 %) were hospitalised, and 3 were in intensive care.
Most cases were not immunized

That's impressive stats, a dose every 4 days !!

10 microgrants of 5000 USD each up for grabs for bioinformatics and watewater surveillance projects in low and middle income countries.
Deadline is 22nd of March.

If UMAP exaggerates any differences, what are sensible alternative options ?

Daniel MacArthur Then what is a good method to see similarity / differences between the groups? Phylogenetic trees? Just curious if there is a more truer or cleaner way to visualize the distinctions

Coming up soon. A free MOOC on 'Viral Outbreaks and Pandemics : a One Health Approach' organised by INSTITUT PASTEUR Institut Pasteur Education
First lecture by Arnaud Fontanet.
📅 29/02/2024 - 14h Inscription 📷 us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

Amazing app. Academic CV in a picture.

Great initiative!

Good to see HIV prevalence falling by 2.5% in 3 years in antinatal surveys South Africa.

Interesting study on vaccine effectiveness of updated XBB vaccine against symptomatic infection. After median interval of 7.5 weeks after booster, VE was slightly lower (49%) against JN.1 than against XBB variants (60%). No statistical significance due to small sample size.

Longer 🧵 on BA.2.87. So far, it has not grown quickly or spread far geographically, so its future is murky. It could be a flash-in-the-pan that soon disappears or it could mutate to become more fit & challenge JN.1. My summary of its private mutations is below. 1/22

Tulio de Oliveira Designated as BA.2.87.1
Thanks for the thread with background!
github.com/cov-lineages/p…

Et un grand merci à Rémi Brancato pour le super reportage sur notre étude dans le journal de France Inter ce matin. Ma radio préférée en France 😁

Release of 8 new genomes of a new lineage of SARS-CoV-2 with > 100 mutations from South Africa. This is probably the most divergence lineage identified this year. In this thread, we highlight some of the characteristics of the new BA.2.X lineage and epidemiology in SA.