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Natasha Loder 🐋

Oct 10, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X

@DrMikeRyan

Fantastic news. @DrMikeRyan from @WHO spoke this morning of significant progress in DRC, and expresses gratitude and hope that the world is getting on top of this virus.

Ebola is still transmitting but is now cornered in a smaller geographic area.

@DrMikeRyan

Lots of hard work getting to this point with Ebola. @DrMikeRyan says “I do think that vaccination has had a major impact on the dynamics of the epidemic”.

Another factor is the availability of treatment. Knowledge of the new treatments means that patients are much more likely to present themselves for care. If they do they are much more likely to survive too...

@DrMikeRyan

Inside Ebola Treatment Units the case fatality rate is only 1/3, outside it is 2/3 says @DrMikeRyan

The security situation has not improved. It is as bad, if not worse. However, there are decreasing tensions from the community itself. There are also 1,000 Ebola survivors who are being followed and supported, and who are spreading the message about vaccination and treatment.

@DrMikeRyan

And @DrMikeRyan also mentions the increase in increase skill of response workers over last year, from burial teams to nurses. The skill and the capacity of the Congolese workers has shown remarkable advances.

@DrMikeRyan

Not possible to say the outbreak is over... “now we have to kill the virus” and it is in ADF areas (groups that have been making attacks). @DrMikeRyan will not make predictions on when it is over. “We are on the somewhat bumpy road to zero”.

J&J vaccine to be rolled out soon in Goma and may provide a firewall against Ebola. Messaging to locals is that J&J is preventative vaccine, while the Merck vaccine is used in outbreak areas for rapid response and containment — as it takes only one dose & works faster.

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More from @natashaloder

Natasha Loder 🐋

@natashaloder

Sep 20, 2023

🚨 Can common infections cause psychiatric conditions in children? Yes.

A UK health minister Maria Caulfield told parliament on September 12th that the childhood condition PANDAS/PANS exists and is caused by infections. It will fund more research.🧵

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Children that are healthy and developmentally on track suddenly start exhibiting OCD or other neuropsychiatric symptoms such as tics, anxiety, irritability and anger. It comes on quickly.

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Natasha Loder 🐋

@natashaloder

Mar 19, 2023

@MichaelWorobey

So one of the new narratives emerging is that @MichaelWorobey went on a media blitz to promote their version of events—in order to bolster the case for a zoonosis in Wuhan.

I suspect this is inaccurate.

For one thing *prior* to this story breaking in the Atlantic, Worobey… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

In other words it seems likely the team had hoped and planned to keep a media silence around this discussion of the new data—because it wasn’t theirs.

But as the group of people who knew about that meeting grew, it would have likely proven difficult to keep a lid on the story.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Let’s not fill the lack of information about the precise series of events with devious motives and narratives. I think much more will become clear when the Nature paper is published. And Worobey et al publish their report with their conclusions.

On that topic of devious… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

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Natasha Loder 🐋

@natashaloder

Mar 17, 2023

@who

So @who weekly presser started and @tedros talking. Says data was uploaded in late January. Data not definitive answer to how pandemic began

@WHO

@WHO @tedros This data should have been shared three years ago says @tedros. Calls on China to be transparent. Understanding how covid began moral and scientific imperative

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The SAGO scientific advisory group at @who met last Tuesday says @DrTedros

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Natasha Loder 🐋

@natashaloder

Jan 31, 2023

Help needed. Poll at the end. 🧵

Should we say "obese people"?

One researcher tells me not to do this because we don't say "cancer people" and it is stigmatising.

One of our style gurus (SG) counters: "obese is an adjective, cancer is a noun".

So one might write "obese mothers have a higher risk of gestational diabetes".

I go back to the researcher and he counters back:

"cancerous is also an adjective. But you would never use it to describe someone with cancer".

Researcher adds,

.. in diabetes the use of "diabetics" is being phased out 🤯.

.. and the same discussion on obesity is ongoing.

Then he says I will be "on the wrong side of history" writing something like "obese people" rather than "people with obesity"

Read 9 tweets

Natasha Loder 🐋

@natashaloder

Dec 16, 2021

@Airfinity

Couple of interesting @Airfinity slides at the @IFPMA briefing earlier.

First one shows that if 50% of production is shifted to make a variant vaccine that there will be a three billion dose shortfall by the middle of 2022.

Why?

The reason is the overheads that accrue with switching from one vaccine to another on a production line. (Stop the line, clean it, restart it, get it inspected, and so on).

This is the first quantification I have seen of the hidden costs of moving to variant vaccines.

It is true we can design and make a novel variant vaccine in under 100 days. But making it at scale is a different challenge.

Of course, it can be done. But if you are going to do it, you have to make sure that the cost of switching (fewer doses) are worthwhile.

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