Health News Roundup: U.S. challenges Alabama law on transgender youth; As Beijing tightens COVID curbs, hard-hit Shanghai sees signs of life and more

This status is achieved when a district has three consecutive days with no new daily increases in infections, city government official Gu Honghui told a news conference. Moderna asks Canada for extension of COVID vaccine to young children Canada is reviewing a request by Moderna to approve its COVID-19 vaccine for pediatric use in children aged 6 months to 5 years, the government and the company said on Friday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

U.S. challenges Alabama law on transgender youth

The U.S. Justice Department said it filed a complaint on Friday challenging a law in Alabama that criminalizes some gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth. Earlier this month, Alabama's Republican governor signed into law the bill, which makes it a felony punishable with up to 10 years of imprisonment for providing voluntary medical treatments, including hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgery to help align physical characteristics to the gender identity of a minor.

As Beijing tightens COVID curbs, hard-hit Shanghai sees signs of life

The Chinese capital Beijing tightened COVID restrictions on Sunday as it battled an outbreak, while Shanghai let more of its 25 million residents venture out for light and air after reporting a second day of zero infections outside of quarantine areas. The outbreak in Shanghai, which began in March, has been China's worst since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands have been infected and the city has forbidden residents from leaving their homes, to great public anger.

COVID's new Omicron sub-lineages can dodge immunity from past infection, study says

Two new sublineages of the Omicron coronavirus variant can dodge antibodies from earlier infection well enough to trigger a new wave but are far less able to thrive in the blood of people vaccinated against COVID-19, South African scientists have found. The scientists from multiple institutions were examining Omicron's BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages - which the World Health Organization last month added to its monitoring list. They took blood samples from 39 participants previously infected by Omicron when it first showed up at the end of last year.

Purdue urges skeptical appeals court to revive Sackler opioid lawsuit shield

Judges on a U.S. appeals court appeared hesitant on Friday to revive a legal shield that would protect the Sackler family that owns Purdue Pharma from lawsuits related to the prescription opioid OxyContin, a key to ending the company's bankruptcy. During oral arguments, a three-judge panel on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals probed the limits of a bankruptcy judge to protect non-bankrupt parties like the wealthy Sacklers, in the absence of clear legal authority.

U.S. likely to find out about next COVID booster by summer -Fauci

Scientists and health officials by this summer should have a better sense of what type of COVID-19 booster will be needed to deal with the next phase of the pandemic and when it should be administered, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday. The National Institutes of Health, where Fauci serves as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is conducting clinical studies to determine if the next COVID booster should be specific to a particular variant of the coronavirus or designed to address more than one variant, known as a bivalent vaccine, ahead of the fall season, he said.

Chinese Omicron-specific mRNA COVID vaccine candidate to be trialed in UAE

China's Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co said its COVID-19 vaccine candidate using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and targeting the Omicron variant has obtained clinical trial approval in the United Arab Emirates. With Friday's announcement, Abogen joins Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna in trialing candidates modified specifically against Omicron, a highly transmissible variant with increased resistance to antibodies elicited by existing shots.

Six Shanghai districts reach 'zero-COVID' status

China's financial hub of Shanghai has reined in COVID transmission risks at the community level, excluding cases in quarantine centers, with six of its 16 districts attaining zero-COVID status, an official said on Sunday. This status is achieved when a district has three consecutive days with no new daily increases in infections, city government official Gu Honghui told a news conference.

Moderna asks Canada for extension of COVID vaccine to young children

Canada is reviewing a request by Moderna to approve its COVID-19 vaccine for pediatric use in children aged 6 months to 5 years, the government and the company said on Friday. Moderna's Canada General Manager Patricia Gauthier said at a news conference the request was filed with Canada Health on Thursday night.

Pfizer says COVID treatment Paxlovid fails to prevent infection of household members

Pfizer Inc on Friday said a large trial found that its COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid was not effective at preventing coronavirus infection in people living with someone infected with the virus. The trial enrolled 3,000 adults who were household contacts exposed to an individual who was experiencing symptoms and had recently tested positive for COVID-19. They were either given Paxlovid for five or 10 days or a placebo.