Biotech, in brief

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to two more health districts, the World Health Organization said on Friday. [2]

It now reaches 63 health districts in seven provinces, including Dungu, in a province that borders South Sudan. [2]

Congo had confirmed 7,890 cases and 3,799 deaths by 23 September. [2]

The virus is Bundibugyo, a rare species of Ebola with no approved vaccine or treatment. [1][2]

Only about 30,000 people who may have been exposed are on contact lists, the lists of people health workers watch for symptoms. [3]

Health workers would expect about 60 contacts for each confirmed case, or about 420,000 in all. [3]

More than 8 in 10 new cases are in people who were not on any contact list, said Jean Kaseya, head of Africa's disease-control agency. [3]

North Kivu province now has about a third of new cases and deaths. [1]

Just over 60% of people diagnosed in North Kivu have died, against 48% across Congo. [1]

In the Butembo health zone, around a trading city in North Kivu, only two of nine health checkpoints are working, because there is not enough staff. [1]

Africa CDC chief Kaseya said on Tuesday that cases are spreading along Congo's borders with Uganda, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. [7]

On Thursday, security forces fired during an Ebola burial in Beni after residents demanded to see the body, and at least one person was killed. [5]

Governments pledged about $2.9 billion at a meeting in New York on Thursday, including $886 million from the United States. [3][4]

The WHO's head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said cases are falling overall, and that contact tracing and safe burials have improved. [2]

Why it matters. Watch whether new cases start coming from people already on contact lists. Kaseya said that, with no deaths at home and no newly infected health workers, would let him judge if control is four weeks away. [3]

Bangladesh began a month-long measles and rubella vaccination campaign on Saturday, aimed at 3.4 million children who were never vaccinated or were missed. [9] It covers children from 6 months to 59 months old, because Bangladesh's government lowered the usual starting age of 9 months during the outbreak. [9] The country has counted 1,087 measles deaths, confirmed and suspected, and 101 of them were confirmed in a laboratory. [9] Health experts blame vaccination campaigns that were cancelled or delayed in 2024 and 2025. [9]

Why it matters. The US disease agency calls it the world's largest measles outbreak, with nearly 187,000 suspected cases since 15 March. [9] Babies under 9 months were too young for the vaccine, and they were helping the virus spread. [9]

Doctors in Bunia, a city in northeastern Congo, confirmed a case of mpox on Friday in a 21-year-old woman. [8] Mpox is a virus that causes fever and skin sores and spreads through close contact. [8] Congo ended its national mpox emergency in April, after three years and more than 34,000 confirmed cases, but warned the virus could come back. [8] A second woman is awaiting test results, and five suspected cases in Bunia are under investigation. [8]

Why it matters. Bunia is in Ituri, the province where the Ebola outbreak was declared on 15 May. [8] A health official said the Ebola response is making it harder to watch for other infections. [8]

From 22 October, medicines mailed into the United States from abroad must clear customs through a licensed customs broker, with a money guarantee, the Wall Street Journal reported. [11] Few prescriptions sent to one person by post have ever had to clear that bar. [11] Until now Americans could import their own medicines this way, a route STAT, a health news site, calls a loophole. [11] The US government says small foreign parcels that pay no tariffs and send no tracking data carry illegal goods. [11]

Why it matters. The US government says small parcels send no tracking data, so the rule covers all of them rather than the ones it suspects. [11] It lands on people who have been getting their own prescriptions by post. [11]

Doctors led by Tommaso Bellini of the Gaslini Institute in Genoa, Italy, tried a blood test that tells whether a feverish baby has a bacterial or a viral infection in 15 to 20 minutes. [10] It measures two proteins on white blood cells: CD64 rises when the body fights bacteria, and CD169 when it fights a virus. [10] In 85 babies under 90 days old, it correctly sorted all 15 bacterial infections, 44 viral ones and 26 babies with no infection. [10] Bellini presented the results at a European emergency medicine meeting in Paris. [10]

Why it matters. Today's tests take hours, so many feverish babies get antibiotics, though only about 15 in 100 have a serious bacterial infection. [10] Antibiotics given without need help bacteria become resistant, and Bellini now plans a trial in 300 to 500 babies. [10]

A study looked at the medical records of more than 92 million US adults. [11] It found more than 1.1 million taking drugs like Ozempic with no record of a condition that would make them eligible, such as obesity or diabetes. [11] The New York Times reported the study, and STAT summed it up. [11] That is a little more than 1 in every 100 adults whose records were checked. [11] The researchers did not look at why. [11] Doctors said many people probably take the drugs to lose a few pounds, or in hope of other benefits. [11]

Why it matters. The study can show who takes the drugs but not why, because the reason is missing from the records. [11] Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, is meanwhile in a US court fight over a copy of its Wegovy pen. [12]

Viatris, a company that makes copies of medicines once their patents run out, has sued Novo Nordisk in a federal court in Delaware. [12] Its Mylan unit wants a ruling that its planned copy of Wegovy, Novo's weight-loss drug, would not break a Novo patent on how the single-dose pen is used. [12] Copies of Wegovy and Ozempic cannot be sold in the US until 2032, when the patents on their active ingredient, semaglutide, run out. [12] Novo has settled earlier fights over copies with Mylan and other drugmakers. [12]

Why it matters. Novo earned nearly $31 billion from Wegovy and Ozempic last year, so each patent around the drug is worth a court fight. [12] Novo declined to comment, citing the case. [12]

Myeloma UK, a charity for people with myeloma, a blood cancer, published a report saying UK patients miss treatments already used elsewhere in Europe. [14] It says a patient in Germany would have about a third more treatments available. [14] NICE, the body that judges whether England's health service should pay for a medicine, said it approved 94% of the cancer drugs it assessed in 2025/26. [14] This month the NHS approved DVRD, a four-drug mix tailored to how well each patient responds. [14]

Why it matters. In trials, 84% of people on DVRD were still free of myeloma after four years, and about 1,900 people a year could get it. [14] Myeloma affects more than 35,000 people in the UK. [14]

The NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission, a group of researchers, launched its final report on pandemic readiness during this year's UN General Assembly. [15] It drew on 20 country case studies, three of them in Africa, and 819 interviews. [15] The commentary says readiness scores built from plans and equipment were poor at predicting how countries fared in COVID-19. [15] The authors of a commentary in Nature Africa say their own 2021 study found countries with higher scores were more likely to record more deaths. [15]

Why it matters. The commentary names the Ebola outbreak in Congo, where trust in the response has been a major problem, as a reason to build plans with communities. [15] It says the work of community health workers needs steady money between emergencies, not only once a crisis starts. [15]

Roche, the Swiss drug company, will pay Atavistik Bio $70 million up front to help find new drugs for heart, kidney and metabolic diseases. [13] Up to $1.9 billion more will follow only if the work reaches set goals. [13] Atavistik, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, studies where the body's own small molecules stick to proteins, to find hidden pockets a drug could grip. [13] Its own lead drug is in an early trial for hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia, a severe disease that affects many organs. [13]

Why it matters. Roche has mostly sold cancer drugs, and heart, kidney and metabolic disease is a field it is moving into. [13] Most of the $2 billion in the headline is paid later, and only if the work reaches set goals. [13]