Infectious Disease Regulatory Watch: February Highlights

Projected disease burden from declining childhood vaccine coverage shows increases in vaccine-preventable diseases. Benjamin Lopman, PhD, provides insights on how VaxImpactMap works and the potential long-term disease consequences of decreased immunization rates.

As the Bundibugyo virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo surpasses 9300 confirmed cases and 4400 deaths, this FAQ explains how the virus spreads, how it presents, why it is hard to diagnose and treat, which vaccines and therapies are being tested, and why CDC considers the risk to the United States low.

A 39-year-old unvaccinated Franklin County woman has died after a recent measles diagnosis. Nationally, numbers continue to increase and the US has passed 4,000 cases.

The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) recently held its respiratory season kick-off, which included the release of its annual respiratory disease survey. This year, the survey revealed the gap between vaccine support and uptake. Robert Hopkins Jr, MD, medical director of NFID delves deeper into the findings of the survey and the vaccine uptake challenges associated with certain immunizations.

The latest CDC numbers show a 5.0% increase of measles cases from week-to-week. The US total reached 4080 confirmed cases, 78% above all of 2025.

With US measles cases nearing 3,900 this year and Pennsylvania reporting its fifth measles-related death, here is a review of how the virus spreads, how it is prevented and managed, and what severe disease looks like.

Vaxcyte's 31-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine candidate met every prespecified primary immunogenicity and safety endpoint against PCV20 and PCV21 in the OPUS-1 trial of 4,047 US adults.

The latest CDC numbers show a 6.2% increase of measles cases from week-to-week. Last week there was a 5.4% increase in cases showing a continuing steady increase dictated by ongoing outbreaks across the US.