• Georgia: CDC has warned that a flesh-eating parasite called Leishmania Mexicana is spreading locally through sand flies native to the southern United States. The bacteria cause skin sores that typically show up weeks to months after a person is bitten by an infected fly, and the lesions can last for years, which can lead to scarring. Some drugs are available to treat patients suffering from the lesions, however, CDC said not all cases require medication treatment. Currently, CDC says the parasite is "endemic" in Texas and some other southern states. (Tin, CBS News, 10/20; Cuevas, USA Today, 10/19)
• New York: Inflammation seen in patients with severe COVID-19 or long COVID may be related to an imbalance of fungi in the gut, according to a study published in Nature Immunology. The study, led by Iliyan Iliev at Weill Cornell Medicine and colleagues, looked at blood from 91 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in 2020. Nearly 75% of those patients had severe COVID-19 and received more than six liters of supplementary oxygen a minute or invasive mechanical ventilation. When compared to 36 individuals who never tested positive for COVID-19, those with severe COVID-19 produced four times as many antibodies against three fungal species that are commonly found in the gut, suggesting those people had elevated amounts of those fungi. The researchers also collected fecal samples in early 2021 from 10 people with COVID-19 and found they had higher overall levels of gut fungi — especially fungi of the Candida species — compared to 10 healthy individuals. The study also found people with severe COVID-19 continued to have higher levels of antibodies against C. albicans and neutrophil precursors long after they recovered from the disease, suggesting mycobiota changes during infection could contribute to inflammation associated with long COVID. (Prillaman, Nature, 10/23)
• North Carolina: Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) of North Carolina on Friday announced it will acquire 55 urgent care centers from FastMed and plans to increase FastMed operations in the state. "With approximately half of FastMed's clinics located in rural areas of our state with limited access to healthcare resources, this is an important investment in North Carolina," said Tunde Sotunde, president and CEO of BCBS of North Carolina. The deal is expected to close early next year. (Berryman, Modern Healthcare, 10/20)

According to an  analysis  published in JAMA Internal Medicine, six factors could significantly increase your risk of developing long COVID — and one factor could protect you.