Top Infectious Disease News Stories Week of November 29 - December 5

ACIP Votes on Hepatitis B Vaccine Marks More Confusion, No Supportive Safety Data, and Uncertainty of Public Health Policy

Lacking any safety data showing potential serious adverse effects, the committee decided to move forward with the recommendation “that the initial dose administered no earlier than 2 months of age.”

CDC ACIP Delays Votes on Hepatitis B Birth Dose Until Tomorrow

Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) decided to delay the vote on 3 different hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine recommendations around the current immunization schedule for the birth doses.

World AIDS Day 2025: Global Setbacks and New Strategies to Sustain Progress Toward 2030 HIV Targets

December 1 marks World AIDS Day 2025 at a moment of significant strain for the global HIV response, with new reports from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNAIDS, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) describing widespread service disruptions, rising inequities, and increasing drug-resistance threats, but also innovation, and renewed political commitment across regions.

Delaying the Birth Dose of Hepatitis B Vaccine Could Lead to More Infections, Greater Costs

New data analysis shows the health and economic consequences of delaying the infant hepatitis B virus (HBV) birth dose vaccine in the United States. The findings—based on a model of 2024 US births—show that even short delays in vaccination lead to substantially more infections, severe long-term health complications, and sharply increased health care spending.¹

HIV Drug Resistance Declines in the Modern ART Era

A new 6-year analysis led by Quest Diagnostics offers encouraging evidence that HIV drug resistance in the United States continues to fall in the era of modern antiretroviral therapy (ART). Published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, the analysis evaluated more than 90,000 HIV plasma RNA sequences and over 25,000 proviral DNA sequences submitted to Quest between 2018 and 2024. Researchers examined resistance mutations across 4 major antiretroviral classes and found an overall 17% decline in drug resistance prevalence during the study period.¹