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Who’s eligible for the 2024 COVID-19 vaccine, or ‘Spring Booster’?

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Coronavirus (COVID-19), immunisations
Smiling young woman who has a plaster on her arm

For information about the 2024 COVID-19 autumn/winter vaccination, visit our relevant blog post. As we move into spring, protection from any earlier COVID-19 vaccination you may have had will be starting to wane. For those who are more likely to …

Inside Britain’s Deadly Fungus Collection

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Microbiology services, Uncategorized
A micriscopic image of the fungi Cunninghamella bertholletiae

Housed near Bristol, UKHSA’s National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi (NCPF) is home to more than 4,500 isolates of potentially deadly fungi isolates, gathered over the last century.

In this blog post, we’ll cover the history of the NCPF: why it was set up, what it houses and how it continues to play an important role in protecting our health.

How bacteria-munching viruses could offer an alternative to antibiotics

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: UKHSA science
Stylised visualisation of a bacteriophage

They look like something out of nightmare, but these so-called ‘spider viruses’ occur naturally, and could be a powerful new weapon in tackling the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Bacteriophages, or phages for short, have a remarkable and currently untapped …

Is hay fever season starting earlier in the UK, with the pollen count rising?

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Health in a changing climate
Honeybee covered in pollen on a pussy willow catkin

Hay fever is already common during the spring and summer months, but our changing climate could see some symptoms starting earlier in the year for allergy sufferers across the UK. Recent studies suggest that some types of pollen and other …