The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda rages, with BNO News reporting 894 cases and 204 deaths today and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) telling partners it has received only about 10% of the funding pledged to help fight the outbreak.

Donors have pledged $910 million, but less than $90 million had been released for the affected countries, according to Africa CDC today during a press briefing. The new case numbers reflect 38 new infections and six new deaths.

Today the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced during a press conference it will release $107 million in emergency funding for the Ebola response in the DRC and Uganda. CDC officials also said they were engaged in twice-weekly calls with the US World Cup host cities to enhance surveillance of the disease at games, but the overall Ebola threat to Americans is low.

WHO publishes new clinical guidelines

Yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) released a new comprehensive guide for the clinical management of filovirus disease, which include all types of Ebola and Marburg viruses. The new guidelines highlight the importance of early supportive care to improve patient survival and health outcomes, outlining 16 evidence-based recommendations.

“The current Bundibugyo virus outbreak is a stark reminder of the need for diligent, holistic and person-focused medical care, to save lives and preserve human dignity. We encourage governments and authorities to integrate these new recommendations into preparedness and outbreak response, to ensure high-quality care for everyone,” said WHO Director-General Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD.

Among the guidelines are rapid testing, patient isolation, rehydration therapy, and early and precise use of intravenous fluids and vasoactive medications to treat shock in patients.

A recent study in the Journal of Medical Virology by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that having physical or mental comorbidities prior to having COVID-19 raised the risk of long COVID. 

“While our findings align with other studies showing increased odds of developing long COVID among individuals with mental health disorders, our results indicated that these elevated odds are not unique to those with mental health comorbidities,” the authors wrote. “We found no meaningful difference in the odds of developing long COVID between participants with pre-existing mental health comorbidities and those with other non-mental health comorbidities.” 

Understanding the role of mental illness in long COVID

Researchers have been trying to understand the role of pre-existing mental diseases in increasing the likelihood of long COVID, a post-infection condition with an array of lingering symptoms. 

The researchers looked at 9,637 participants in the Johns Hopkins COVID Long Study. Of this group, 3,635 (38%) reported having a prior mental condition with or without other health conditions, with 2,237 (62%) diagnosed as having long COVID. 

These findings challenge the hypothesis that pre-existing mental health conditions are responsible for long COVID.

A second cohort of 3,616 people (38%) had pre-existing non-mental comorbidities, with 2,294 (63%) diagnosed as having long COVID. The last group of 2,386 people (25%) reported no prior health conditions, with 1,287 (54%) diagnosed as having long COVID. 

The researchers found that the groups that had pre-existing physical or mental conditions were at similar risk for developing long COVID. People without prior health comorbidities were less likely to be diagnosed as having long COVID. 

“These findings challenge the hypothesis that pre-existing mental health conditions are responsible for long COVID,” the authors wrote. “This is particularly important because the occurrence of long COVID outside of mental of psychological factors has often been overlooked or dismissed.” 

The researchers also noted that there is a “strong relationship” between having several long-COVID symptoms and the onset of new depression or anxiety. The reasons for this could include the underlying mechanisms of long COVID or the stress of managing and living with a chronic illness that may not improve. 

Recent updates from the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) show a spike of H5N1 avian flu activity in Idaho dairy cattle, with 33 cattle affected on dairy milking facilities in the past 30 days. Utah also reported three H5N1 detections among cattle this month.

So far this year, APHIS has tracked 54 H5N1 cases among cattle, far fewer than the 917 reported in 2024. Last year, 171 cattle were sickened with avian flu.

In bird news, another live-bird market, this one in Providence, Rhode Island, reported avian flu in 450 birds. The detection comes one week after a bird market in Passaic, New Jersey, reported 670 sick animals.

Seal pup die-off

Finally, a preprint study yesterday suggests that more than 13,000 baby elephant seals from a group of 17,000 on Heard Island, off the coast of Australia, were killed by H5N1 avian flu since last August, representing more than 76% of the island’s seal population.

Currently, Australia is the only continent in the world to have no cases of the H5N1 strain that can affect both birds and mammals.

Drugmakers GSK and Spero Therapeutics announced yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved their investigational oral antibiotic for complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs).

Marketed under the brand name Utebzi, tebipenem pivoxil is the first and only oral carbapenem antibiotic approved in the United States. The antibiotic targets cUTIs caused by multidrug-resistant organisms, which have been typically treated with intravenous (IV) carbapenems. 

More than three million cUTIs occur in the United States annually, and roughly one-third of patients experience treatment failure because of drug resistance. 

“With antibiotic resistance continuing to rise, patients and healthcare professionals need new treatment options,” GSK Chief Scientific Officer Tony Wood, PhD, said in a company press release.

Trial data show noninferiority compared with IV carbapenems

The FDA approval was based on the results of the PIVOT-PO trial, which found that tebipenem pivoxil was noninferior to IV imipenem-cilastatin in hospitalized patients with cUTI, including pyelonephritis (kidney infection), based on the overall response at the test-of-cure visit.

Tebipenem pivoxil’s overall success rate (a composite of clinical cure plus microbiologic eradication) was 58.5%, compared with 60.2% for imipenem-cilastatin, for an adjusted treatment difference of –1.3%. (The noninferiority margin was –10%).

The safety profile was similar to that of imipenem-cilastatin and other carbapenems. The trial was stopped early for efficacy.

With antibiotic resistance continuing to rise, patients and healthcare professionals need new treatment options.

Tebipenem pivoxil was initially developed by Spero Therapeutics. In 2022, GSK signed a licensing agreement with Spero to develop and commercialize the drug in all markets except Asia. That deal provided the financing for Spero to conduct the PIVOT-PO trial, which involved 1,690 patients hospitalized with cUTIs, including pyelonephritis.

“Through our partnership with GSK, we look forward to this much-needed oral treatment option reaching cUTI patients to help reduce the burden of the disease,” said Spero Therapeutics President and CEO Esther Rajavelu, MBA.