Latest healthcare news

Professor Stebbing in his daily update expands on this.  He suggests that there are falls in cases across two out of the five European countries but also a continued increase in the number of sick patients in hospital in the United Kingdom, Italy and...

An interesting paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine describes this as a vaccine which could prevent infection caused by known and future variants of concern as well as infection with pre-emergent sarbecoviruses i.e. those with potential to cause...

An interesting article by Moran and others published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases August 16th discusses this issue. The management of patients presenting to healthcare service with SARS-CoV-2 infection has developed rapidly over the past year, driven by the...

The MHRA has approved the UK’s first monoclonal antibody treatment for  COVID-19.  Regeneron/Roche’s Ronapreve binds to the virus in the lining of the respiratory system, blocking access to cells and can be administered either by injection or infusion. ...

An interesting abstract published in Wellcome Open research awaiting peer review looked into this issue.   Red and others studied the behavioural response to SARS-CoV-2 antibody test results as part of the REACT study.  This is a large community based...

A research letter published by Diaz and others in the Journal of the American Medical Association on August 4th 2021 reports that there are rare cases of cardiac inflammation following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.   They review clinical records of vaccine...

A preprint posted in the medRxiv July 31st 2019 looks at this issue.   Riemersma and others suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 variant known as the Delta is associated with a higher viral load and increased transmissibility relative to other variants, as well as...

A new report published by the Academy of Medical Sciences in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine on August 6th 2021 has warned that the UK could face exceptionally large outbreaks of a respiratory syncytial virus and influenza during the autumn and winter in 2021 and...

An interesting preprint by Petra and others in medRxiv looks at the evidence for lower viral load of individuals who have been vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.  One of the key questions regarding COVID-19 vaccines is whether they reduce viral...

An interesting preprint in medRxiv published by Melo and others posted on June 27th 2021 shows the effectiveness of facemasks in blocking the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.  In 2019, SARS-CoV-2 transmitted via the airborne route caused the COVID-19 pandemic. ...

An interesting article by Sarah Reardon in the Scientific American answers this question.  If researchers were predicting which coronavirus variant would take over the world, the Delta variant would not have been their first guess.  However, since its first...

An interesting commentary in the BMJ global health by Meyerowitz-Katz and others looks at this issue.   During the pandemic, there has been ongoing and contentious debate around the impact of restrictive government measures to contain SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks,...

An interesting article published in The Lancet July 20th 2021 by Susan Hillis and others summarises this. The COVID-19 pandemic priorities have focused on prevention, detection and response.   Beyond morbidity and mortality, pandemics carry secondary...

The CDC in America May 25th 2021 reports on this issue looks at breakthrough infections between January 1st and April 30th 2021.   COVID-19 vaccines are a critical tool for controlling the ongoing global pandemic.   The Food and Drug Administration...

An interesting research paper published by Leber and others July 13th 2021 discusses this issue. Testing for COVID-19 with PCR is considered gold standard.  Again this may result in delayed detection of disease.   Antigen detection via lateral flow testing is much...