Individual liberty and choice vs. wider public health became one predictable hinge upon which swung the often-acerbic debates at the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting, which took up – again – the matter of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine scheduling, a day after the panel voted not to vote on such guidance.

Disorganization resulting from last-minute changes to voting questions involving new recommendations for hepatitis B virus vaccines created a moment of déjà vu Dec. 4 when the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 6-3 to once again delay its votes on whether the current recommended birth dose should be pushed back.

NIH researchers report that in severe influenza, survival improves at late stages only when antivirals are combined with therapies that repair lung damage or limit harmful T-cell responses, explaining why anti-inflammatory treatments alone are often ineffective.

A rapid diagnostic test from Ocean Dx SAS delivered gold standard performance in a clinical evaluation that points to a potential shift in how sepsis is identified and treated. The assay, which detects more than 1,000 bacterial species directly from whole blood, returned 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity compared with reference blood cultures, with results reported in five hours. Further, the test tripled the number of infections identified.

South Korean researchers led by Lee In-suk of Yonsei University have reported the most complete oral microbiome catalog to date, with more than 72,000 genomes. Detailed in Cell Host & Microbe on Nov. 12, 2025, the database is expected to serve as a universal platform for academia and enable “precision microbiome medicine” for the industry, Lee told BioWorld.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc and Biomérieux SA launched Ampore-TB, a research use only test that can rapidly detect mutations linked to antimicrobial resistance in tuberculosis. With multidrug-resistant TB affecting an estimated 400,000 people annually and increasing risks of morbidity and mortality, this assay could help with earlier diagnosis of drug resistance in patients.

Roche Holdings AG received CE mark approval for its Elecsys Dengue Ag test, a fully automated, high-throughput immunoassay to help diagnose acute dengue virus infections. With cases of dengue on the rise worldwide, the test, which delivers results in 18 minutes, offers high sensitivity and specificity across all four dengue virus serotypes, and will help clinicians confidently distinguish dengue from other illnesses causing acute fever.

Even though the U.S. CDC is operating on a skeleton crew due to the partial government shutdown, it is updating its immunization schedules to adopt the COVID-19 and chickenpox vaccine recommendations the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made at its September meeting.

Phase Scientific International Ltd. launched China’s largest clinical study for urine-based cervical cancer screening. If successful, the blood-based test could be the first non-invasive test for HPV.

In what represents the first filing to have emerged in the name of Cellect Laboratories Inc., one of the start-up’s co-founders, Claire Theresa Murphy, describes their development of a non-invasive screening method that could one day replace the Pap test.