#infectious testing market

[pangur-and-grim]

a lot of you probably knows Belphie's story, but I'll summarize just in case.

Devon Rex cats are better for people with allergies (less shed fur + less Fel d1 protein in their saliva), so on February 16, 2024, I went the breeder route and put down a deposit. before Belphie even opened his eyes, he was mine!

every Friday, the breeder sent me a new photo. I had a broken leg, and was basically rotting in bed at that point, so it was the best part of my week. then, at 12 weeks old, I BROUGHT HIM HOME!

at first, he was so alive! like a wind-up monkey that never shut off. he dangled from the wall-hangings, savaged my feet as I walked, and used my elderly cats as jumping poles to do cool acrobatics over. but all this gradually faded.

first, he stopped playing. then he stopped climbing. then he stopped moving much at all. my vet ran tests on him and found multiple pathogens (calcivrius + mycoplasma), but the medication didn't help - he kept declining.

on September 17th, I woke up to find him swollen like a balloon. we finally had an answer: he had Feline infectious Peritonitis, aka FIP. before 2017, this would've been a death sentence. he would've kept bloating until he drowned in his own fluids. and before 2024, I would've been forced to inject him with black market drugs. but thankfully, South Tower Animal Hospital in Fergus, Ontario was doing a study on the oral medication! we drove two hours, enrolled him, and left with the GS-441524 pills.

and he went from those photos above.....to this:

I thought Belphie would die as a kitten. I'd accepted that he would never grow up. but now he gets to LIVE!

and all for the low cost of $7,553.....ahhhahaha........god.

that + a recent home disaster has wiped out my savings, but I still need to pay for Belphie's medication. to remain in this study, I need to do bloodwork monthly until Feb 2025, and he'll need daily pills until March 2025.

I've put a risograph print + enamel pin set up at greerstothers.shop. I hate asking for help, but if you'd like to support Belphie's continued treatment, please consider checking them out!

[aarunresearcher]

The United States IVD market is experiencing robust growth, driven by the increasing prevalence of chronic and infectious diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, and infectious diseases such as COVID-19. This, in turn, has heightened the need for accurate and timely diagnostic tools like IVD, thus creating lucrative growth opportunities for the market. 

[soumyafwr]

https://carbonfacesocial.org/blogs/79307/Infectious-Disease-Testing-Market-Share-Overview-Competitive-Analysis-and-Forecast

Infectious Disease Testing Market Share, Overview, Competitive Analysis and Forecast 2031

[aishavass]

North America, followed by Europe are the largest regional markets for point of care testing for infectious diseases...

[aventurineswife]

Paint the World Pink and Blue

Summary: In the chaotic streets of Zaun, you encounter Jinx, the enigmatic and wild inventor with a penchant for explosions and mischief. What starts as a chance meeting quickly turns into an adventure as Jinx pulls you into her unpredictable world of fireworks, inventions, and chaos. Amidst the noise and danger, a connection sparks between the two of you that might just be the most exciting—and dangerous—thing you’ve ever experienced.

Tags: Jinx x Reader, Fluff and Chaos, Slow Burn (implied potential), Found Family Vibes, Mischief, Humor, Explosions, Mutual Pining (?).

Warnings: Mild descriptions of explosives and chaotic behavior, Slightly reckless actions (typical Jinx behavior), Brief mentions of fear/danger due to Jinx's unpredictable nature.

A/N: first time writing this, I have no idea what I did...🧍‍♀️uhhh, bit ooc ig since I have never watched Arcane... yeah, enjoy.

The chaos of Zaun's night market had never felt more alive. Steam hissed from broken pipes, neon lights flickered like desperate fireflies, and the hum of low chatter merged with the occasional boom from distant experiments gone awry. You weaved your way through the crowd, looking for anything resembling stability in this whirlwind city.

And then there she was.

Jinx stood atop a pile of crates, her eyes alight with excitement as she lit another firework. Her braids whipped around her, the perfect complement to the wild grin plastered across her face. It was hard not to stare. She was mesmerizing in the way that storms are—chaotic, destructive, but impossible to look away from.

You didn’t expect her to notice you, but she did.

“Oi, you!” she called, pointing her oversized flare gun at you, though her tone was more playful than threatening. “You’ve got the face of someone who needs a little more boom in their life.”

Your heart jumped, whether from fear or something else, you couldn’t tell. “I’m good without explosions, thanks...” you replied, hoping humor might save you from whatever chaos she was planning.

Jinx hopped down, her boots landing with a thud against the floor. She closed the distance between you with a few skips, her grin only widening. “Boring answer, cupcake. Lucky for you, I don’t take no for an answer.”

Before you could protest, she grabbed your hand and dragged you off toward a secluded corner of the market. The people around you didn’t even blink; they knew better than to get involved when Jinx was in the mix.

She led you to a makeshift workshop cluttered with half-assembled gadgets, jars of brightly colored powders, and an unsettling amount of explosives. She finally let go of your hand, spinning around to face you. “Alright, here’s the deal: I’m working on something big. Huge. Monumental! But I need a second opinion.”

You raised an eyebrow, glancing at the haphazard pile of mechanical parts and volatile materials. “And you picked me because…?”

“Because you don’t run away screaming when I look at you,” she said, tilting her head with a mock-serious expression. “Plus, you’ve got good vibes. I like vibes.”

Before you could decide whether to be flattered or terrified, she thrust a strange device into your hands. It looked like a cross between a grenade and a music box.

“What… is this?” you asked cautiously.

“A party starter!” she exclaimed, leaning closer until her face was inches from yours. “Pull the pin, and it’s fireworks. For, like, five seconds. Then—BOOM! Confetti. Brilliant, right?”

Her enthusiasm was infectious. You couldn’t help but smile, despite your better judgment. “You’re absolutely out of your mind.”

She laughed, the sound bright and wild. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Her gaze softened slightly, the chaos in her eyes dimming just a fraction. “You’re fun. I like fun.”

The moment lingered, her usual frenetic energy giving way to something quieter. Then, just as quickly, she snapped back to her usual self. “Okay, enough mushy stuff! Test it out!”

You hesitated but pulled the pin. The device whirred to life, shooting out a spray of vibrant fireworks that lit up the dim workshop. True to her word, it ended with a shower of confetti and a loud pop. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“See? Told you it’s a hit!” she said, her grin triumphant. “Stick with me, cupcake, and you’ll never be bored again.”

You weren’t sure what you’d just signed up for, but as she grabbed your hand again and pulled you toward her next adventure, you realized you didn’t care. Chaos had never looked so good.

Should I post the Ekko, Isha and Caitlyn fic too...? Hmmm 🤔🫣👀

[covid-safer-hotties]

The next pandemic is inevitable. Australia isn’t ready - Published Sept 23, 2024

(Before you Americans yell at me, It's already the 23rd in Australia. This is very late-breaking)

I thought this was a really good breakdown of the current situation given the government-approved covid denial we live in. Long, but worth a read.

By Kate Aubusson and Mary Ward

Top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against COVID-19 are sounding the alarm.

NSW is less prepared today to fend off a deadly pandemic despite the lessons of COVID-19, say top infectious disease and public health veterans at the nerve centre of the state’s war against the virus.

And we won’t have another hundred years to wait.

NSW’s gold standard Test-Trace-Isolate-Quarantine and vaccination strategies will be useless if a distrusting population rejects directives, refuses to give up its freedoms again, and the goodwill of shell-shocked public health workers dries up.

A panel of experts convened by The Sydney Morning Herald called for a pandemic combat agency akin to the armed forces or fire brigades to commit to greater transparency or risk being caught off guard by the next virulent pathogen and misinformation with the potential to spread faster than any virus.

“It’s inevitable,” says Professor Eddie Holmes of the next pandemic. A world-leading authority on the emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, Holmes predicts: “We’ll have less than 100 years [before the next pandemic].

“We’re seeing a lot of new coronaviruses that are spilling over into animals that humans are interacting with,” said Holmes, the first person to publish the coronavirus genome sequence for the world to see.

“People are exposed all the time, and each time we are rolling the dice.”

The independent review of NSW Health’s response to COVID-19 opened with the same warning: “No health system or community will have the luxury of 100 years of downtime.”

Pandemic preparedness needs to be a “permanent priority”, wrote the report’s author, Robyn Kruk, a former NSW Health secretary, “rather than following the path of those that have adopted a ‘panic and forget strategy,’ allowing system preparedness to wane”.

Why we don’t have 100 years to wait for the next pandemic The World Health Organisation has declared seven public health emergencies of international concern since 2014, including the current mpox outbreak.

Climate change is turbocharging the factors that coalesce to create the perfect breeding ground for a pandemic-causing virus, including population increases, bigger cities, and better-connected global markets and migration.

“Animals will be forced into more constrained environments, and humans that rely on those environments will be again constrained in the same environments. There will be more wet markets, more live animal trade that will just increase exposure,” Holmes said.

“It was clear that we weren’t ready [for COVID],” said Jennie Musto, who, after seven years working for the World Health Organisation overseas, became NSW Health’s operations manager for the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the team responsible for NSW’s COVID-19 contact tracing and containment.

“Everyone had preparedness plans gathering dust on a shelf, but no one was actually ready to respond, and so everyone was on the back foot,” Musto said. “Perhaps none of us really thought this was going to happen. We were waiting 500 years.”

Who would willingly become the next doomed whistleblower? Eddie Holmes, known for his repeated assertion that SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab, is deeply concerned that when the next pandemic-causing virus emerges, chances are it will be covered up.

“My worry is that if the virus appeared in a small population, say, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the people involved wouldn’t blow the whistle now, given the fact that you would get blamed,” he said.

Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who tried to raise the alarm about a virulent new virus, was reportedly reprimanded by police for spreading rumours and later died of COVID-19.

The global blame game, culminating in a deep distrust of China and accusations that the virus was grown in a Wuhan lab, is why Holmes believes “we’re in no better place than we were before COVID started, if not worse”.

“I work with a lot of people in China trying to keep the lines of communication open, and they’re scared, I think, or nervous about saying things that are perceived to counter national interest.”

From a vaccine perspective, our defences look strong. There have been monumental advancements in vaccine development globally, driven by mRNA technology. In Sydney this month, construction began on an RNA vaccine research and manufacturing facility.

“But the way I see it is that nothing has been done in terms of animal surveillance of outbreaks or data sharing. The [global] politics has got much, much worse,” Holmes said.

Combat force Conjoint Associate Professor Craig Dalton, a leading public health physician and clinical epidemiologist, called for a dramatic expansion of the public health workforce and the establishment of a pandemic combat force that would routinely run real-time pandemic simulations during “peacetime”.

“No one is upset with fire brigades spending most of the time not fighting fires. They train. A lot. And that’s probably how we need to move,” he said.

“We need exercise training units so that every major player in pandemic response is involved in a real-time, three to four-day pandemic response every three to five years at national, state and local [levels].”

The federal Department of Health and Aged Care recently ran a health emergency exercise focused on governance arrangements involving chief health officers and senior health emergency management officials, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said. The outcomes of this exercise will be tested later this year.

Dalton said desktop simulations and high-level exercises involving a handful of chiefs didn’t cut it, considering the thousands of people working across regions and states. He instead suggested an intensive training program run in the Hunter New England region before the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provided a good model.

“We were ringing people, actors were getting injections, just like a real pandemic,” said Dalton, who once ordered a burrito in a last-ditch effort to contact a restaurant exposed to COVID-19.

Our heroes have had it The expert panel was emphatic that our pandemic response cannot once again rely on the goodwill of the public health and healthcare workforce.

According to the Kruk review, what began as an emergency response ultimately morphed from a sprint into an ultra marathon and “an admirable (yet unsustainable) ‘whatever it takes’ mindset”.

They were hailed as heroes, but the toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers was brutal. Workloads were untenable, the risk of transmission was constant, and the risk of violence and aggression (for simply wearing their scrubs on public transport in some cases) was terrifying.

“We got through this pandemic through a lot of people working ridiculous hours,” Dalton said.

“You talk to a lot of people who did that and say they could not do it again.”

Tellingly, several expert personnel who worked at the front lines or in the control centre of NSW’s pandemic defences were invited to join the Herald’s forum but declined. Revisiting this period of intense public scrutiny, culminating in online attacks and physical threats, was just too painful.

So long, solidarity Arguably, the biggest threat to our pandemic defences will be the absence of our greatest strength during COVID: the population’s solidarity and willingness to follow public health orders even when it meant forfeiting fundamental freedoms.

The public largely complied with statewide public health orders, including the stay-at-home directive that became the 107-day Delta lockdown, and other severe restrictions prevented many from being at the bedside of their dying loved ones, visiting relatives in aged care homes and attending funerals.

“My worry is that next time around when those sorts of rules come out, people may say, ‘Well, don’t worry about it.’ They relax it in the future. Why don’t we just not stick to the rules?” said Professor Nicholas Wood, associate director of clinical research and services at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.

“I’m not sure we quite understand whether people [will be] happy with those rules again,” he said.

Dalton was more strident.

“I tend to agree with Michael Osterholm … an eminent US epidemiologist [who] recently said the US is probably less prepared for a pandemic now than it was in 2019, mostly because the learnings by health departments in the COVID pandemic may not make a material difference if faced with a community that distrusts its public health agencies,” he said.

“If H1N1 or something else were to spill over in the next couple of years, things like masks, social distancing and lockdowns would not be acceptable. Vaccination would be rejected by a huge part of the population, and politicians might be shy about putting mandates in.”

As for the total shutdown of major industries, people will struggle to accept it unless the next pandemic poses a greater threat than COVID, said UNSW applied mathematician Professor James Wood.

The risk of the virus to individuals and their families will be weighed against the negative effects of restrictions, which are much better understood today, said Wood, whose modelling of the impact of cases and vaccination rates was used by NSW Health.

“Something like school closure would be a much tougher argument with a similar pathogen,” he said.

A previous panel of education experts convened by the Herald to interrogate pandemic decision-making in that sector was highly critical of the decision to close schools for months during NSW’s Delta lockdown.

Greg Dore, professor of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Kirby Institute, said the public’s reluctance to adhere to restrictions again may, in part, be appropriate.

“Some of the restrictions on people leaving the country were a bit feudal and too punitive,” he said. “Other restrictions were plain stupid, [for instance] limitations on time exercising outside.”

Meanwhile, the delays to publicly recognise the benefits of face masks and the threat of airborne transmission “ate away at trust”, Dalton said.

“We shouldn’t make those mistakes again,” he said.

Transparent transgressions Uncertainty is not something politicians are adept at communicating, but uncertainty is the only constant during a pandemic of a novel virus.

Vaccines that offered potent protection against early iterations of the COVID virus were less effective against Omicron variants.

“[The public], unfortunately, got hit by a rapid sequence of changes of what was ‘true’ in the pandemic,” James Wood said.

Political distrust can be deadly if governments give the public reason to suspect they are obfuscating.

The expert panel urged NSW’s political leaders to be far more transparent about the public health advice they were given before unilaterally enforcing restrictions.

There was a clear line between public health advice and political decision-making in Victoria. The Victorian chief health officer’s written advice was routinely published online.

In NSW, that line was blurred as Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stood beside political leaders, most notably former premier Gladys Berejiklian, at the daily press conferences.

Public health experts said that they looked for subtle cues to determine the distinction between the expert advice and the political messaging during press conferences, paying attention to body language, who spoke when and who stayed silent.

“It is fine for public health personnel to have a different view to politicians. They have different jobs. What is not OK is to have politicians saying they are acting on public health advice [when they are not],” he said.

The ‘whys’ behind the decisions being made were missing from the daily press conferences, which created “a vacuum for misinformation”, said social scientist and public health expert Professor Julie Leask at the University of Sydney.

“The communication about what you need to do came out, and it was pretty good … but the ‘why we’re doing this’ and ‘what trade-offs we’ve considered’ and ‘what dilemmas we’ve faced in making this decision’; that was not shared,” Leask said.

The infodemic In the absence of transparency, misinformation and disinformation fill the vacuum.

“We had an ‘infodemic’ during the pandemic,” said Dr Jocelyne Basseal, who worked on the COVID-19 response for WHO in the Western Pacific and leads strategic development at the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Sydney.

“The public has been so confused. Where do we go for trusted information [when] everyone can now write absolutely anything, whether on Twitter [now called X] or [elsewhere] on the web?” Basseal said.

A systematic review conducted by WHO found misinformation on social media accounted for up to 51 per cent of posts about vaccines, 29 per cent of posts about COVID-19 and 60 per cent of posts about pandemics.

Basseal’s teenage children recently asked whether they were going into lockdown after TikTok videos about the mpox outbreak.

“There is a lot of work to be done now, in ‘peacetime’ … to get ahead of misinformation,” Basseal said, including fortifying relationships with community groups and teaching scientists – trusted and credible sources of information – how to work with media.

In addition to the Kruk review’s six recommendations to improve its pandemic preparedness, NSW Health undertook a second inquiry into its public health response to COVID-19, which made 104 recommendations.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said: “We are working hard to ensure the findings and recommendations from those reports are being implemented as quickly as possible.”

The expert panellists spoke in their capacity as academics and not on behalf of NSW Health or WHO.

The ‘As One System’ review into NSW Health’s COVID-19 response made six recommendations 1. Make governance and decision-making structures clearer, inclusive, and more widely understood 2. Strengthen co-ordination, communication, engagement, and collaboration 3. Enhance the speed, transparency, accuracy, and practicality of data and information sharing 4. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable people and communities most at risk, impacted and in need from day one 5. Put communities at the centre of emergency governance, planning, preparedness, and response 6. Recognise, develop and sustain workforce health, wellbeing, capability and agility.

[brainddeadd]

“Why do we keep pretending we don’t want to kiss each other?”

The sound of laughter and chatter filled the air around you as you and William Nylander walked through the bustling outdoor market. The warm evening sun cast a golden hue over the stalls, and the sweet scent of pastries wafted through the air, mixing with the laughter of families and friends enjoying the night.

You and William had been friends for a while now, your bond forged over shared interests and late-night conversations. But lately, there had been an undeniable tension between you two—something electric that made your heart race whenever he was near.

As you stopped at a stall selling handmade jewelry, William leaned in closer to get a better look. “What do you think of this one?” he asked, holding up a delicate silver bracelet.

“It’s pretty,” you replied, smiling at him. “But I think it would look even better on you.”

He laughed, the sound warm and inviting. “You think so? Maybe I should get it just for that reason.”

As he spoke, his eyes sparkled, and the playful banter continued, but the tension lingered just beneath the surface. You both picked out a few trinkets to remember the day, but every time your hands brushed against each other, a spark ignited.

Finally, unable to hold back any longer, you turned to him, your heart pounding in your chest. “William,” you started, trying to find the right words. “Why do we keep pretending we don’t want to kiss each other?”

His laughter faded, and he turned to you, surprise flickering across his features. “You feel it too?” he asked, his tone more serious now.

“Of course I do,” you replied, feeling a mix of relief and vulnerability. “It’s like this huge elephant in the room that we keep ignoring.”

He stepped a little closer, the distance between you shrinking as the laughter of the market faded into the background. “I thought I was the only one,” he confessed, his voice low. “I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but I can’t help but think about how much I want to kiss you.”

Your heart raced at his admission, and a soft smile spread across your face. “So, why don’t we stop pretending?”

With that, William hesitated only a moment before leaning in closer, his gaze searching yours for permission. You nodded, and in an instant, his lips were on yours—soft and tentative at first, as if testing the waters.

The world around you melted away, and you melted into the kiss, feeling all the pent-up emotions and unspoken words finally come to life. As he deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around you, you felt a sense of joy and relief wash over you. This was right.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and smiling, William brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, his eyes filled with warmth. “That was worth the wait.”

“Definitely,” you agreed, feeling giddy. “Now, let’s see what other trouble we can get into tonight.”

“Lead the way,” he said, his grin infectious as he intertwined his fingers with yours, ready to explore the rest of the evening together.

[aarunresearcher]

United States point of care diagnostics market size is projected to exhibit a growth rate (CAGR) of 6.90% during 2024-2032. Numerous advancements in portable and handheld diagnostic devices have enhanced the convenience and user-friendliness of testing, which is primarily driving the market growth.

[liminalweirdo]

Researchers at McMaster University have started a phase-2 clinical trial on a next-generation, inhaled COVID-19 vaccine.

The AeroVax study, supported by $8M in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), will test needle-free vaccines developed to provide protection from SARS-CoV-2.

Led by Fiona Smaill and Zhou Xing, members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster, the multi-centre trial will evaluate the new vaccine in a broad study group, while also confirming safety.

Findings from pre-clinical studies and the soon-to-be-published data from the phase-1 trial indicate that McMaster’s inhaled vaccine is more effective at inducing immune responses than traditional injected vaccines are, because it directly targets the lungs and upper airways — where the virus first enters the body.

“While the current, needle-based COVID-19 vaccines have prevented a tremendous amount of death and hospitalization, they haven’t really changed a lot of people’s experience with getting recurrent infections,” says Smaill, a professor in the Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine. “So, we’re looking to change that by providing robust protection directly at the site of infection.”

The new vaccine is entirely Canadian, from design and biomanufacturing at McMaster’s Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory to pre-clinical and clinical testing conducted by a team of Canadian experts, with Canadian participants, at Canadian research sites.

For the new trial, researchers hope to include 350 participants from across Canada at clinical trial sites in Hamilton, Ottawa, and Halifax. Those eligible for participation must:

Have at least three doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine

Have never received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine

Have not had a COVID-19 infection or COVID-19 vaccination within three months prior to enrollment

Have no diagnosis of lung disease

Be available to attend trial visits in-person

Be age 18-65

Smaill says that the study is a randomized placebo-controlled trial, noting that two-thirds of the study’s participants will receive the vaccine, while the other third will receive a placebo. Participants won’t know which group they belong to, but the researchers argue that both groups are equally integral to the study.

“Clinical trials, like this one, are the only way to firmly establish the efficacy and safety of novel health products,” Smaill says. “Randomization allows for objective comparison between those who received the vaccine and those who didn’t, which can tell us a lot about the level of protection the vaccine could provide and its side effects.”

“Every medicine or vaccine that we use and trust today has at one point gone through similar clinical trials processes,” adds Matthew Miller, director of both the IIDR and Global Nexus at McMaster, and part of the trial study team. “This is a highly regulated process with extensive oversight that ensures the safety of participants and will generate critical data to inform the next steps in development.”

Following the study, researchers will move the vaccine into phase-3 clinical trials which will test efficacy in a larger population group and ultimately position the vaccine for market approval.

More information, including how to enrol in the study, is available at aerovax.ca.

source

[darkmaga-returns]

An explosive new study conducted within the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) own laboratory has revealed excessively high levels of DNA contamination in Pfizer’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine.

Tests conducted at the FDA’s White Oak Campus in Maryland found that residual DNA levels exceeded regulatory safety limits by 6 to 470 times.

The study was undertaken by student researchers under the supervision of FDA scientists. The vaccine vials were sourced from BEI Resources, a trusted supplier affiliated with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), previously headed by Anthony Fauci.

Recently published in the Journal of High School Science, the peer-reviewed study challenges years of dismissals by regulatory authorities, who had previously labelled concerns about excessive DNA contamination as baseless.

The FDA is expected to comment on the findings this week. However, the agency has yet to issue a public alert, recall the affected batches, or explain how vials exceeding safety standards were allowed to reach the market.

[devoted1989]

65,000 non - human primates are used in laboratory experiments every year in the united states

Each year, more than 110 million animals - including mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, fish and birds - are killed in U.S. laboratories for chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. In order for a drug to be approved in the United States, the FDA typically requires toxicity tests on one rodent species such as a mouse or rat and one nonrodent species such as a monkey or dog.

Around 65,000 non - human primates (NHP) are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. No new biomedical research projects have been approved on chimpanzees in the US since 2015.

Macaques are now the most commonly used NHP - most are imported from China and Cambodia.

The huge demand for research monkeys and their rising costs have created a market for monkey smugglers.

While most macaques imported by the US are identified as captive-bred on paper, some experts believe that many of those in US labs have been trafficked from the wild as the illegal trade in wild-caught macaques is widespread. Sources state that prices vary from $5 000 - $20 000 per monkey.

NHPs are used because of their similarities to humans with respect to genetic makeup, anatomy, physiology, and behavior which make it possible to approximate the human condition.

NHPs are used in research into HIV, neurology, behavior, cognition, reproduction, Parkinson's disease, stroke, malaria, respiratory viruses, infectious disease, genetics, xenotransplantation, drug abuse, and also in vaccine and drug testing.

The NIH is the largest public source of funding for biomedical research in the United States.

Last year new U.S. law eliminated the requirement that drugs in development must undergo testing in animals before being given to participants in human trials. It allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve new drugs without requiring animal data.

Signed in December, the law doesn't ban the testing of new drugs on animals outright. Instead it simply lifts the requirement that pharmaceutical companies use animals to test new drugs before human trials. Companies can still test drugs on animals if they choose to.

And pro-research groups are downplaying the law, saying it signals a slow turning of the tide. Jim Newman, communications director at Americans for Medical Progress, which advocates for animal research, argues non-animal technologies are still “in their infancy” and won’t be able to replace animal models for “many, many years.” The FDA still retains tremendous discretion to require animal tests, he says.

- National Institutes of Health ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), Science Direct, World Animal Protection, science.org, National Anti - Vivisection Society and HSUS.

Image with kind permission from The Ethic Whisper.

@theethicwhisper

[mutualclimax22]

Myth vs. Reality: The Truth About Condoms—Debunking Misconceptions That Have Prevented Safe Sex and Mutual Climax

Introduction

Condoms are one of the most effective ways to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies, yet they are clouded with myths that inhibit proper or totally productive use. At Klimax, we believe that the key to great, safe intimacy is knowledge. Let's look at some of the common myths about condoms and the truths behind them.

Myth 1: Condoms Dull Sensation

Reality: While many proclaim that condoms dull sensation, condom technology has advanced and now offers ultra-thin as well as textured options, scattering any blandness and adding pleasure. Examples of Klimax condoms include the barely-there feel, yet safe. Question: Which condom would be best for sensation and security: ribbed, dotted, or lubricated?

Myth 2: Condoms Always Break

Reality: When used properly, condoms are one of the sturdiest and thinnest medical devices around. High-quality condoms like Klimax are put through rigorous tests to ensure strength and reliability. Use a condom correctly, and it will hardly break, if at all. To avoid breaking a condom, store it correctly, open it carefully, and use water-based or silicone-based lubricants to prevent friction.

Myth 3: There's No Need for a Condom in Oral or Anal Sex

Reality: STIs can be transmitted through oral and anal sexual contact. Risks for infection, such as herpes, gonorrhea, and HPV, can be reduced by using condoms properly. In fact, flavored condoms are available through Klimax for oral sex.

Myth 4: You Can Reuse a Condom

Reality: A condom is intended to be used only once. The reuse of a condom diminishes its capabilities multiple times over, increasing the risk for breakage and STI contact. Condom-use safety mostly depends on using a new condom, typically for every act.

Myth 5: Condoms Are One for All.

Reality: Everyone is different. And most condoms available in the market do come in various sizes to ensure that they are an easy fit. A tight condom may break; a loose one may slip off. Choosing the right size, like Klimax offers, ensures protection and comfort.

Myth 6: The pull-out is just as protective as a condom.

Reality: The pull-out method is prone to high failure rates and offers no protection against STIs. Pre-ejaculatory fluid can contain sperm and infectious agents. Condoms for preventing pregnancy and lowering the chance for STI transfer are among the most effective methods for safer intimate experiences that lead partners to mutual climax.

Myth 7: Condoms Contain All the Bad Chemicals

Reality: Brands like Klimax manufacture condoms from body-safe materials, which are subjected to strict quality control. While some have latex allergies, an alternative would be non-latex, such as polyisoprene or polyurethane condoms.

Conclusion

Misinformation about condoms leads to reduced well-being because risky behaviors may be adopted. Knowing the truth will empower you to make the right decisions that enhance both safety and pleasure. Don't let myths come between you and protection: Celebrate safer sex with Klimax condoms, and have peace of mind in every intimate moment.

Be safe. Be aware. Be solid.

https://www.klimax.com/

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive (Daily updates!)

By Stephani Sutherland

Gentle nasal spray vaccines against COVID, the flu and RSV are coming. They may work better than shots in the arm

Alyson Velasquez hates needles. She never liked getting shots as a kid, and her anxiety only grew as she got older. “It really ballooned in my teens and early 20s,” she says. “It became a full-blown phobia.” She would panic at the sight of a needle being brought into an exam room; more than once she passed out. Velasquez says that she took an antianxiety medication before one appointment yet still ran around the room screaming inconsolably “like I was a small child; I was 22.” After that episode Velasquez, now a 34-year-old financial planner in southern California, quit needles completely. “No vaccinations, no bloodwork. For all of my 20s it was a no-go for me,” she says.

Then COVID showed up. “It finally hit a point where it wasn’t just about me,” Velasquez says. “It felt so selfish not to do this for the greater public health and the safety of our global community.” So she got vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 2021, although she had to sit on her husband’s lap while he held her arms. “It was a spectacle. The poor guy at CVS ... he did ask me, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’” She very much did. “I’m very pro-vaccine. I am a rational human. I understand the necessity of [getting] them,” she insists. But today she still struggles with each injection.

Those struggles would end, however, if all her future vaccinations could be delivered by a nasal spray. “Oh, my God, amazing!” Velasquez says.

The amazing appears to be well on its way. Vaccines delivered through the nose are now being tested for several diseases. In the U.S., early clinical trials are showing success. Two of these vaccines have generated multiple immune system responses against the COVID-causing virus in people who received them through a puff up the nose; earlier this year their makers received nearly $20 million from Project NextGen, the Biden-Harris administration’s COVID medical initiative. Researchers are optimistic that a nasal spray delivering a COVID vaccine could be ready for the U.S. as soon as 2027. Although recent efforts have focused on inoculations against SARS-CoV-2, nasal vaccines could also protect us against the flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more.

A few nasal vaccines have been introduced in the past, but they’ve been beset by problems. The flu inoculation FluMist has not gained popularity because of debates about its effectiveness, and a different vaccine was pulled from the market decades ago because some people had serious side effects. In China and India, nasal vaccines for COVID have been approved because those countries prioritized their development during the pandemic, whereas the U.S. and other wealthy nations opted to stick with arm injections. But this new crop of vaccines takes advantage of technology that produces stronger immune responses and is safer than preparations used in the past.

In fact, immunologists say these spritzes up the nose—or inhaled puffs through the mouth—can provide faster, stronger protection against respiratory viruses than a shot in the arm. That is because the new vaccines activate a branch of the immune system that has evolved for robust, rapid responses against airborne germs. “It may be more likely to really prevent infection from getting established,” says Fiona Smaill, an infectious disease researcher at McMaster University in Ontario. Such inoculations may also help reduce the enormous inequities in vaccine access revealed by the pandemic. These formulations should be cheaper and easier to transport to poor regions than current shots.

But nasal vaccines still face technical hurdles, such as how best to deliver them into the body. And unlike injected vaccines, which scientists can measure immune responses to with blood tests alone, testing for immunity that starts in nose cells is more challenging. But researchers working in this field agree that despite the hurdles, nasal formulations are the next step in vaccine evolution.

Traditional vaccines injected through the skin and into an arm muscle provide excellent protection against viruses. They coax immune cells into making widely circulated antibodies—special proteins that recognize specific structural features on viruses or other invading pathogens, glom on to them and mark them for destruction. Other immune cells retain a “memory” of that pathogen for future encounters.

Intramuscular injection vaccines are good at preventing a disease from spreading, but they do not stop the initial infection. A nasal spray does a much better job. That’s because sprays are aimed directly at the spot where many viruses first enter the body: the nose and the tissue that lines it, called the mucosa.

Mucosa makes up much of our bodies’ internal surfaces, stretching from the nose, mouth and throat down the respiratory tract to the lungs, through the gastrointestinal tract to the anus, and into the urogenital tract. Mucosa is where our bodies encounter the vast majority of pathogenic threats, Smaill says, be it flu, COVID, or bacterial infections that attack the gut. This tough, triple-layered tissue is specialized to fight off invaders with its thick coating of secretory goo—mucus—and with a cadre of resident immune cells waiting to attack. “Mucosa is really the first line of defense against any infection we’re exposed to,” Smaill says.

Mucosal immunity not only prepares the immune system for the fight where it occurs but also offers three different types of protection—at least one more than a shot does. Nasal vaccines and shots both mobilize immune messenger cells, which gather the interlopers’ proteins and display them on their surfaces. These cells head to the lymph nodes, where they show off their captured prize to B and T cells, which are members of another part of the immune system called the adaptive arm. B cells, in turn, produce antibodies, molecules that home in on the foreign proteins and flag their owners—the invading microbes—for destruction. Killer T cells directly attack infected cells, eliminating them and the microbes inside. This provides broad protection, but it takes time, during which the virus continues to replicate and spread.

That’s why a second type of protection, offered only by the mucosal tissue, is so important. The mucosa holds cells of the innate immune system, which are the body’s “first responders.” Some of these cells, called macrophages, recognize invasive microbes as foreign and swallow them up. They also trigger inflammation—an alarm sounded to recruit more immune cells.

Another part of this localized response is called tissue-resident immunity. These cells don’t have to detect telltale signs of a pathogen and make a long journey to the infected tissue. They are more like a Special Forces unit dropped behind enemy lines where a skirmish is occurring rather than waiting for the proverbial cavalry to arrive. This localized reaction can be quite potent. Its activation is notoriously difficult to demonstrate, however, so historically it’s been hard for vaccine makers to show they’ve hit the mark. But it turns out that one type of antibody, called IgA, is a good indicator of mucosal immunity because IgAs tend to predominate in the mucosa rather than other parts of the body. In an early trial of CoviLiv, a nasal COVID vaccine produced by Codagenix, about half of participants had detectable IgA responses within several weeks after receiving two doses. That trial also showed the vaccine was safe and led to NextGen funding for a larger trial of the vaccine’s efficacy.

It’s possible an inhaled vaccine may provide yet one more layer of protection, called trained innate immunity. This reaction is a bit of a mystery: although immunologists know it exists and appears also to be produced by intramuscular injections, they can’t quite explain how it works. Immune cells associated with trained innate immunity seem to have memorylike responses, reacting quickly against subsequent infections. They also have been found to respond against pathogens entirely unrelated to the intended vaccine target. Smaill and her colleagues found that when they immunized mice with an inhaled tuberculosis vaccine and then challenged them with pneumococcal bacteria, the mice were protected. In children, there is some evidence that a tuberculosis vaccine, in the arm, generates this type of broad response against other diseases.

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who is working to develop a nasal vaccination for COVID, sees two major potential benefits to nasal immunity in addition to better, faster, more localized protection. First, attacking the virus in the nose could prevent the disease from being transmitted to others by reducing the amount of virus that people breathe out. And second, Iwasaki says, the spray may limit how deeply the infection moves into the body, so “we believe that it will also prevent long COVID.” That debilitating postinfection condition, sometimes marked by signs of entrenched viral particles, disables people with extreme fatigue, chronic pain, a variety of cognitive difficulties, and other symptoms.

Making a new vaccine is hard, regardless of how you administer it. It needs to raise an immune response that’s strong enough to protect against future invasions but not so strong that the components of that response—such as inflammation and fever—harm the host.

The lining of the nose puts up its own barriers—literal, physical ones. Because the nasal mucosa is exposed to so many irritants from the air, ranging from pet hair to pollen, the nose has multiple lines of defense against invading pathogens. Nostril hair, mucus, and features called cilia that sweep the nasal surface all aim to trap small foreign objects before they can get deeper into the body—and that includes tiny droplets of vaccine.

And lots of small foreign particles—often harmless—still make it through those defenses. So the nose has developed a way to become less reactive to harmless objects. This dampened reactivity is called immunological tolerance, and it may be the biggest hurdle to successful development of a nasal vaccine. When foreign particles show up in the bloodstream, a space that is ostensibly sterile, immune cells immediately recognize them as invaders. But mucosal surfaces are constantly bombarded by both pathogens and harmless materials. The immune system uses tolerance—a complex series of decisions carried out by specialized cells—to determine whether a substance is harmful. “This is very important because we can’t have our lungs or gastrointestinal tract always responding to nonharmful foreign entities that they encounter,” says Yale infectious disease researcher Benjamin Goldman-Israelow. For example, inflammation in the lungs would make it hard to breathe; in the gut, it would prevent the absorption of water and nutrients.

These barriers may hamper the effectiveness of a nasal flu vaccine that’s been around for a while, called FluMist in the U.S. and Fluenz in Europe. The inoculation is safe, says infectious disease scientist Michael Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis, but it faces a similar problem as do injected flu vaccines: it isn’t very effective at warding off new seasonal flu strains. This might be because flu strains are so common, and people are frequently infected by the time they are adults. Their immune systems are already primed to recognize and destroy familiar flu particles. FluMist is built from a live flu virus, so immune cells probably treat the vaccine as an invader and demolish it as soon as it shows up in the nose, before it has a chance to do any good. This preexisting immunity isn’t such an issue in children, who are less likely to have had multiple flu infections. Nasal flu vaccines are routinely used to inoculate kids in Europe.

In other vaccines, researchers often use adjuvants, special agents that attract the attention of immune cells, to boost a response. Some nasal vaccines use adjuvants to overcome tolerance, but in the nose, adjuvants can pose unique dangers. In at least one case, a nasal adjuvant led to disastrous consequences. An intranasal vaccine for influenza, licensed in Switzerland for the 2000–2001 season, used a toxin isolated from Escherichia coli bacteria as an adjuvant to provoke a reaction to the inactivated virus. No serious side effects were reported during the trial period, but once the vaccine was released, Swiss officials saw a concerning uptick in cases of Bell’s palsy, a disease that causes weakness or paralysis of the facial muscles, often leading to a drooping or disfigured face. Researchers at the University of Zurich estimated that the adjuvanted flu vaccine had increased the risk of contracting Bell’s palsy by about 20 times, and the vaccine was discontinued. “We need to be cautious about using adjuvants like that from known pathogens,” says pharmaceutical formulations scientist Vicky Kett of Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

To get around the challenges posed by the nose, some researchers are exploring vaccines inhaled through the mouth. Smaill is working on one of them. She and her McMaster colleagues aerosolized their vaccine for COVID into a fine mist delivered by a nebulizer, from which it rapidly reaches the lungs. Experiments in mice have shown promising results, with mucosal immunity established after administration of the vaccine.

Another vaccine strategy is to use a harmless virus to carry viral genes or proteins. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City selected a bird pathogen, Newcastle disease virus (NDV). “It’s naturally a respiratory pathogen,” so it infects nasal cells, says Michael Egan, CEO and chief scientific officer of CastleVax, a company that formed to develop the NDV vaccine for COVID. A small early clinical trial showed the CastleVax vaccine was safe and caused robust immune responses in people. “Those results were very promising,” Egan says. People who received the vaccine also produced antibodies that indicated multitiered mucosal immunity, not simply the adaptive immunity from a shot in the arm.

Following that trial, the CastleVax project received NextGen funding, and results from a trial of 10,000 people are expected in 2026. Half of those people will receive a messenger RNA (mRNA) injection, and half will get the new NDV nasal spray. The data should show whether the new nasal vaccine can do a better job of preventing infection than the mRNA injections. Egan has high hopes. “We’re expecting to see a lot fewer breakthrough infections in people who got the vaccine up the nose by virtue of having those mucosal immune responses,” he says.

Florian Krammer, one of the Mount Sinai researchers behind the vaccine, engineered NDV particles to display a stabilized version of the spike protein that’s so prominent in SARS-CoV-2. “You end up with a particle that’s covered with spike,” he says. Spike protein in the blood­stream can raise an immune response. But the NDV vaccine works in another way, too. The virus particle can also get into cells, where it can replicate enough times to cause virus particles to emerge from the cells, provoking another immune reaction. Before moving into human trials, however, researchers had to complete clinical trials to establish that the Newcastle virus is truly harmless because the nose is close to the central nervous system—it has neurons that connect to the olfactory bulb, which is part of the brain. Those trials confirmed that it is safe for this use.

Nasal sprays aim directly at the spot where most viruses first enter the body: the nose. This type of caution is one reason a COVID nasal vaccine approved in India hasn’t been adopted by the U.S. or other countries. The inoculation, called iNCOVACC, uses a harmless simian adenovirus to carry the spike protein into the airway. The research originated in the laboratories of Diamond and some of his colleagues at Washington University at the start of the pandemic, when they tested the formulation on rodents and nonhuman primates. “The preclinical data were outstanding,” Diamond says. Around the time he and his colleagues published initial animal results in Cell in 2020, Bharat Biotech in India licensed the idea from the university. In a 2023 phase 3 clinical trial in India, the nasal vaccine produced superior systemic immunity compared with a shot.

Diamond says American drug companies didn’t pursue this approach, because “they wanted to use known quantities,” such as the mRNA vaccines, which were already proving themselves in clinical trials in 2020. As the pandemic took hold, there was little appetite to develop nasal vaccine technology to stimulate mucosal immunity while the tried-and-true route of shots in the arm was available and working. But now, four years later, an inhaled vaccine using technology similar to iNCOVACC’s is being developed for approval in the U.S. by biotech company Ocugen. Both inhaled and nasal forms of the vaccine are set to undergo clinical trials as part of Project NextGen. These new vaccines are using classical vaccine methods based on the virus rather than using new, mRNA-based technology. The mRNA preparations were developed specifically for intramuscular injections and would have to be significantly modified.

Codagenix, which is developing CoviLiv, sidestepped the need for a new viral vector or an adjuvant by disabling a live SARS-CoV-2 virus. To make it safe, scientists engineered a version of the virus with 283 mutations, alterations to its genetic code that make it hard for the virus to replicate and harm the body. Without all these genetic changes, there would be a chance the virus could revert to a dangerous, pathogenic form. But with hundreds of key mutations, “statistically, it’s basically impossible that this will revert back to a live virus in the population,” says Johanna Kaufmann, who helped to develop the vaccine before leaving Codagenix for another company earlier this year.

Because most people on the planet have now been exposed to SARS-CoV-2—in the same way they’re regularly exposed to the flu—some nasal vaccines are being designed as boosters for a preexisting immune response that is starting to wane. For example, Yale researchers Iwasaki and Goldman-Israelow are pursuing a strategy in animals deemed “prime and spike.”

The idea is to start with a vaccine injection—the “prime” that stimulates adaptive immunity—then follow it a few weeks later with a nasal puff that “spikes” the system with more viral protein, leading to mucosal immunity. In a study published in 2022 in Science, Iwasaki and her colleagues reported that they primed rodents with the mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the same shot so many of us have received. Two weeks later some of the mice received an intranasal puff of saline containing a fragment of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Because the animals had some preexisting immunity from the shot, the researchers didn’t add any adjuvants to heighten the effects of the nasal puff. Two weeks later researchers detected stronger signs of mucosal immunity in mice that had received this treatment compared with mice that got only the shot.

“Not only can we establish tissue-resident memory T cells” to fight off the virus in the nose, Iwasaki says, but the prime-and-spike method also produces those vigorous IgA antibodies in the mucosal layer. “And that’s much more advantageous because we can prevent the virus from ever infecting the host,” she notes. The study suggests that this approach might also lessen the chances of transmitting the disease to others because of the lower overall viral load. Experiments in hamsters demonstrated that vaccinated animals shed less virus, and they were less likely to contract COVID from infected cage mates that had not been vaccinated themselves.

Although most of the new vaccine strategies are aimed at COVID, nasal vaccines for other diseases are already being planned. Kaufmann, formerly of Codagenix, says the company currently has clinical trials underway for nasal vaccines against flu and RSV. CastleVax’s Egan says “we have plans to address other pathogens” such as RSV and human metapneumovirus, another leading cause of respiratory disease in kids.

Vaccines that don’t need to be injected could clear many barriers to vaccine access worldwide. “We saw with COVID there was no vaccine equity,” Smaill says. Many people in low-income countries never received a shot; they are still going without one four years after the vaccines debuted.

In part, this inequity is a consequence of the high cost of delivering a vaccine that needs to stay frozen on a long journey from manufacturing facilities in wealthy countries. Some of the nasal sprays in development don’t need deep-cold storage, so they might be easier to store and transport. And a nasal spray or an inhaled puff would be much easier to administer than a shot. No health professional is required, so people could spray it into their noses or mouths at home.

For these reasons, needle-free delivery matters to the World Health Organization. The WHO is using the Codagenix nasal spray in its Solidarity Trial Vaccines program to improve vaccine equity. The CoviLiv spray is now in phase 3 clinical trials around the world as part of this effort. “The fact that the WHO was still interested in a primary vaccination trial in the geographies it’s passionate about—that’s indicative that there is still a gap,” Kaufmann says. CoviLiv was co-developed with the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest maker of vaccines by dose. The partnership enabled production at the high volume required for Solidarity.

The CastleVax vaccine with the NDV vector provides another layer of equity because the facilities required to make it already exist in many low- and middle-income countries. “The cool thing is that NDV is a chicken virus, so it grows very well in embryonated eggs—that’s exactly the system used for making flu vaccines,” Krammer says. For example, for a clinical trial in Thailand, “we just shipped them the seed virus, and then they produced the vaccine and ran the clinical trials,” he says. Many countries around the world have similar facilities, so they will not need to depend on pharma companies based in richer places.

Even high-income countries face barriers to vaccination, although they may be more personal than systemic. For very many people, the needle itself is the problem. Extreme phobia such as Velasquez’s is uncommon, but many people have a general fear of needles that makes vaccinations stressful or even impossible for them. For about one in 10 people needle-related fear or pain is a barrier to vaccinations, says C. Meghan McMurtry, a psychologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Needle fear “is present in most young kids and in about half of adolescents. And 20 to 30 percent of adults have some level of fear.” A review of studies of children showed that “concern around pain and needle fear are barriers to vaccination in about 8 percent of the general population and about 18 percent in the vaccine-hesitant population,” McMurtry adds.

Some people are wary of injected vaccines even if they’re not afraid of needles, Kett says; they see injections as too invasive even if the needle doesn’t bother them. “We’re hopeful that something administered by the nasal route would be less likely to come across some of those issues,” Kett says.

In the U.S., however, sprays and puffs won’t be available until they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which requires clear evidence of disease protection. As Diamond points out, standards for such evidence are well established for injections, and vaccine makers can follow the rule book: regulations point to particular antibodies and specific ways to measure them with a simple blood test. But for nasal vaccines, Iwasaki says, “we don’t have a standard way to collect nasal mucus or measure antibody titers. All these practical issues have not been worked out.”

Iwasaki is also frustrated with a restriction by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stops researchers from using existing COVID vaccines in basic research to develop new nasal sprays. The rule is a holdover from 2020, when COVID injections had just been developed and were in short supply; people had to wait to get vaccinated until they were eligible based on factors such as age and preexisting conditions. “That made sense back then, but those concerns are years old; things are different now,” Iwasaki says. “Now we have excess vaccine being thrown out, and we cannot even get access to the waste, the expired vaccine.”

Today scientists want to contrast the effectiveness of nasal formulations with injections already in use. “Those comparisons are really important for convincing the FDA that this is a worthy vaccine to pursue,” Iwasaki says. But the restriction has held up studies by her company, Xanadu, slowing down work. (The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.)

Despite the bureaucratic and scientific hurdles, the sheer number of nasal vaccines now in clinical trials encourages Iwasaki and other scientists pursuing the needle-free route. They say it seems like only a matter of time before getting vaccinated will be as simple as a spritz up the nose.

Velasquez, for one, can’t wait for that day to arrive. The circumstances that finally forced her to reckon with her fear of needles (a global pandemic, the prospect of parenthood and the numerous blood tests that accompanied her pregnancy) were so much bigger than her. If not for them, she might still be avoiding shots. “So having vaccines without needles—I would get every vaccine any doctor wanted me to get, ever. It would be a complete game changer for me.”

[dzthenerd490]

File: Left 4 Dead

SCP#: AKY

Code Name: Green Flu

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Samples of SCP-AKY are stored in six separate vials and placed within a biohazard box locked within a freezer at the Level 4 Section of the on-site Biohazard labs. Any testing must be approved by at least one Level 5 Clearance Foundation staff member. Testing using the Site-AO city simulation testing area must be approved by the Site Director. 

During a containment breach the freezer in question will activate a secret paralysis gas bomb that will activate upon the freezer being opened stunning any enemies but leaving SCP-AKY undamaged in any way. The bombs will only be deactivated after the containment breach is cleared. If they are activated, they must be replaced immediately by Foundation technicians after the breach is cleared. 

Description: SCP-AKY is a strand of rabies genetically altered supposedly by Group of Interest: Neo-Umbrella though there's nothing official to confirm this. Group of Interest: PENTAGRAM was involved with SCP-AKY supposedly trying to buy it on the black market. PENTAGRAM refused claiming and instead pinned blame on Neo Umbrella saying they were involved without giving evidence. They also stated they had their own virus that worked better which turned out to be SCP-AGL.

SCP-AKY infection is seemingly no different to SCP-008-A which is a variant that causes adrenaline to spike in the body and brain allowing the infected to run and attack the non-infected with greater speed and strength. Like SCP-008 infection starts off with normal symptoms that only get progressively worse until the host dies and becomes a zombie. Once a zombie their skin will become deathly pale and oddly their eyes will glow an unusual shade of yellow or orange.  This process can take anywhere between 5 months to 5 minutes. However, the main difference is that SCP-AKY is obviously a virus, and like any virus it has the potential to mutate rather easily depending on the circumstances. 

Like normal viruses SCP-AKY can mutate when an error has occurred when they reproduce after destroying host cells. However, in SCP-AKY’s case errors are more likely to occur not with just errors in the cells but with other factors including the environment. For example, if a host was wearing protective clothing or even armor before infection, they will be able to know that the armor protects them and be sure to keep it on their body even as they are chasing non-infected. Then there are hosts that have been infected in wild and open areas and thus learn to use the environment to their advantage. There have even been reports of them walking on all fours like animals. 

However, when chemicals and extreme physical and mental conditions are taken into account the variations can be much more extreme. There have only been nine recorded variants that exist because of this each one has been labeled SCP-AKY-1 through SCP-AKY-9.

SCP-AKY-1 is an obese variant, covered in boils and lumps of fat yet is still able to move around and even run if it desires. Spits infectious and blinding vomit at non-infected and will explode, releasing infected blood everywhere if it is killed. Possibly the result of someone accidently eating SCP-AKY infected meat or the result of poor eating choices such as eating too much processed, chemical, and artificial foods. MTF units refer to it as a Boomer. 

SCP-AKY-2 is oddly always a hooded infected that seems to be no different to the common infected but is extremely dangerous. Possibly an athlete while they were alive and as a result have become an athletic zombie. Able to quickly and quietly climb on walls, run faster than the common infected, and even jump up and down from buildings. Despite its strength, it prefers to use stealth in order to take down the non-infected. It is often referred to as a Hunter. 

SCP-AKY-3 is the strange result of someone who smoked heavily before SCP-AKY infection. Not only does their head bloat with several disgusting boils but their tongue extends out like a tentacle. With this new tongue they are able to latch onto non-infected, like a frog catching a fly. Though it takes them a considerable amount of time to drag the person back, their tongue wraps around the victim making freeing themselves impossible without help. They possess an odd defense mechanism where when they die their head explodes into a disorienting gas resembling the smoke that smokers puff out after lighting a cigarette. It is often referred to as a Smoker.

SCP-AKY-4 is another odd mutation seemingly the result of someone who does constant labor either on a farm or working at a low wage job. It seems because of their repetitive and back breaking work they become buff when infected but not in a natural way. Only one arm, typically the dominant arm, becomes large and so is that side of the chest and the legs but not the head and the other arm. This allows the infected to charge at anyone with great speed and force but not just charge at them, they can also grab them and crush them into a wall or the ground. It is often referred to as a Charger.

SCP-AKY-5 is a disgusting and almost goblin-like instinct that has a hunch back and slightly muscular build with large hands, all fingers with sharp nails. These infected are rather unusual as they don’t try to bite or even kill the non-infected, just manipulate them. They either like to trap them by grabbing them and throwing them over ledges or into trap holes close to where they hide. Or most curiously they will jump onto the back of an uninfected and force them to run around either off a cliff or into a horde of infected. It's unknown what causes this infection but concerningly due to the type of clothing of the infected, the fact that almost all of them appear male, and that they like to control the bodies of the living, its heavily implied they were criminals of sexual assault while alive. Though there is nothing concrete to prove this. They are often referred to as a Jockey

SCP-AKY-6 is a rather disgusting infected that grows a long neck, a slightly bloated stomach and an extended mouth that spits acidic and infectious slime at the non-infected. Its heavily implied that those who become this variant were heavy drinkers resulting in SCP-AKY mutating their stomach and by extension the acid it produces with the alcohol and other toxic substances they might have consumed. They are referred to as a Spitter.

SCP-AKY-7 is quite possibly the result of a host taking steroids and many other performance enhancement supplements and drugs upon infection. The result is a hulking monstrosity with massive mussels and the strength to throw cars, rip apart buildings, bend steel, and pull apart concrete structures and throw the pieces like projectiles. These instances are rather rare but extremely strong and able to easily kill a human with a single hit with the sheer force of its punch alone. They are referred to as a Tank

SCP-AKY-8 are the most anomalous in their origin, the only thing that remains consistent about them is that they are always women, always wear very little clothing, and are always deathly skinny yet have elongated claws like fingers and incredible strength. It is believed they are created when a woman under intense emotional stress and anxiety is infected. The evidence is in the fact that they are always crying and insolation when spotted only aggravated when someone looks at their face. Oddly, like SCP-096 they can be avoided so long as one is careful to not see them or be seen by them. They are referred to as a Witch

SCP-AKY-9 is quite possibly the most anomalous mutation though that’s mainly due to the fact that no one knows what they look like. All that is known is that during the initial containment and cleanup of SCP-AKY infection only one appeared and it wiped out the entirety of Mobile Task Force Zeus-10 “Necromancers” which were argued to be the most equipped of all the MTF units assigned to deal with SCP-AKY. The sole survivor was badly injured having lost his dominant right arm and right leg. He also receiving several fatal wounds all over his body leaving him with his left face gone, one of his kidneys ripped out, his right lung badly damaged and reduced in size as a result, and his vocal cords damaged beyond repair. He retired form an MTF unit even after receiving artificial organs and limbs for his losses. Though while he was receiving mental counseling it was made clear he couldn’t talk about the SCP-AKY-9 instance without having another mental breakdown. Instead, he merely drew a picture to help us visualize the instance. 

This is the picture.

SCP-AKY was discovered in 2009 when an outbreak occurred in the city of [data expunged], Pennsylvania. Originally thought to be a new flu and nothing more, it was called by the public the Green Flu due to it causing the infected to puke unusually green vomit upon infection. However later at random times with random hosts they started dying and becoming zombies as well as random SCP-AKY variants. The entire city and surrounding cities were placed under quarantine before the infection could spread far. The Global Occult Coalition had control of a majority of the quarantine with the SCP Foundation acting as support. In exchange for offering MTF units to support the GOC Strike Teams the GOC allowed MTF units to take samples that could later be contained. The entire containment of SCP-AKY is known as one of the best corporations between the Foundation and the GOC. 

Due to the mutative and often unpredictable properties of SCP-AKY it was decided by Administrative Staff to have it contained at Site-AO. Like with many widespread Weaponized Viral Anomalies, Site-AO’s unique testing area allowed the Foundation to discover many interesting aspects about the pathogen, please see Addendum X-15 for details. However, it should be noted that it's still debated if SCP-AKY should even be considered a Weaponized Virual Anomaly as its unknown what exactly the rabies virus caused it to mutate. It was merely a rumor that MTF units saw people in strange clothing taking samples of infected SCP-AKY hosts as Foundation satellites did not pick up anything. However, if it truly is the work of Group of Interest: Neo Umbrella before they became public like many believe then it's possible, they got their hands on the SCP-AKY-9 instance. If this is true, it would explain the anomaly's disappearance but also prove to be a worst-case scenario.

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub