To End this Pandemic We ’ll Need a Free Vaccine Worldwide
Until we end COVID-19 transmission across the planet, we are likely to keep getting multiple COVID-19 “waves”— that is, rolling, recurrent outbreaks. While no public health expert has a foolproof crystal ball, this scenario of repeated waves means that the likely contours of the next one to two years are now coming into clearer view.
Right now, many countries including Italy, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom, are still struggling desperately to put out the initial fire. They are using suppression measures like stay-at-home orders as a fire extinguisher to smother transmission while urgentl...
Source: TIME: Health - April 15, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gavin Yamey Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
What Pregnant Women Should Know About Coronavirus
The risks, so far, seem no greater than for anyone else, but the research is thin and only applies to later stage of pregnancy. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - April 2, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Apoorva Mandavilli Tags: Women and Girls Pregnancy and Childbirth Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Babies and Infants Quarantines Epidemics Swine Influenza Vaccination and Immunization SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) Breastfeeding American College of Obstetric Source Type: news
Blood Plasma Treatment for Coronavirus Set to Get Its First Trial Run in New York
The New York Blood Center (NYBC) is the first blood-gathering organization in the U.S. to collect plasma from COVID-19 patients to use as a possible treatment for the disease.
Before antibiotics rendered the practice moot, it was common to treat infectious bacterial diseases by infusing the blood of recovered patients into those struggling with infection. That approach has also been tried against viral infections like H1N1 influenza, SARS and MERS, with inconsistent success. Some patients benefited, but other did not and doctors don’t have a clear understanding of why. But during an evolving pandemic like COVID-19, p...
Source: TIME: Health - March 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
Trump ’s State of Emergency Is an Admission of Failure by the U.S. Government
President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is designed to speed federal support to parts of America that are struggling to prepare for a coming surge of COVID-19 cases, unlocking $50 billion in aid, giving hospitals and doctors more freedom to handle a potential tsunami of sick patients and scrambling to make tests available. In a Rose Garden press conference Friday, Trump presented the emergency measures as proof that, “No nation is more prepared or more equipped to face down this crisis.”
But for epidemiologists, medical experts and current and former U.S. public health officials, the ...
Source: TIME: Health - March 13, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: W.J. Hennigan Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
World Health Organization Declares COVID-19 a ‘Pandemic.’ Here’s What That Means
The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic, pointing to the over 118,000 cases of the coronavirus illness in over 110 countries and territories around the world and the sustained risk of further global spread.
“This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, at a media briefing. “So every sector and every individual must be involved in the fights.”
An epidemic refers to an uptick in the spread of a disease within a specific community. By contrast, the WHO defines a pand...
Source: TIME: Health - March 11, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news
President Trump on Vaccines: From Skeptic to Cheerleader
He once blamed vaccines for autism. Now he ’s demanding the quick development of one for the coronavirus, but shows limited understanding of the science. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - March 9, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jan Hoffman Tags: Vaccination and Immunization Autism Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Influenza Swine Influenza Measles Trump, Donald J Source Type: news
Why Coronavirus Testing Should Be Free For All Americans
When Osmel Martinez Azcue returned to the US after a trip to China and developed a flu-like illness, he did exactly the right thing. He went to a hospital in Miami to get tested for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Thankfully, he was clear of the virus—it was regular, seasonal flu. But imagine his shock when the bill arrived for $3,270 and his insurance company said he’d have to pay $1,400 out of pocket.
Stories like this one are playing out all across America. If any of the 28 million people without insurance develop symptoms and get coronavirus tests, they could face medical bills that could push the...
Source: TIME: Health - March 5, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gavin Yamey Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 health ideas Source Type: news
What Pregnant Women Should Know About Coronavirus
The risks, so far, seem no greater than for anyone else, but the research is thin and only applies to later stage of pregnancy. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - March 3, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Apoorva Mandavilli Tags: Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Pregnancy and Childbirth Babies and Infants Women and Girls Vaccination and Immunization SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) Epidemics Swine Influenza Lancet, The (Journal) Zhang, Wei World Health Organizat Source Type: news
How Can I Prevent Coronavirus? Should I Wear A Mask? And Other Questions
BOSTON (CBS) – The Centers for Disease control has cautioned that, based on current patterns, coronavirus is likely to become a global pandemic. With no approved vaccine or medication to treat it, that could ultimately result in overloaded healthcare systems.
What is a pandemic?
Simply put, a pandemic is a global, widespread outbreak of a new illness. Because it is new, people don’t have the ability to fight it and can be easily infected. The last pandemic to widely affect the United States was H1N1 flu in 2009. The worst pandemic in history was the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 which killed 50 million people worldw...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - February 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Health – CBS Boston Tags: Health News Syndicated Local Coronavirus Source Type: news
Infant hip check is missing problems, study shows
‘Extra assessment and better training needed’ Related items fromOnMedica Under-fives must play more and spend less time sitting with screens Should we have compulsory measles vaccination at school entry? Swine flu jab in pregnancy safe for children as well as mothers Pay more heed to parent concern over sick children Women with small babies can safely wait for labour (Source: OnMedica Latest News)
Source: OnMedica Latest News - February 24, 2020 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Pulmonary surfactant-biomimetic nanoparticles potentiate heterosubtypic influenza immunity
Current influenza vaccines only confer protection against homologous viruses. We synthesized pulmonary surfactant (PS)–biomimetic liposomes encapsulating 2',3'-cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate (cGAMP), an agonist of the interferon gene inducer STING (stimulator of interferon genes). The adjuvant (PS-GAMP) vigorously augmented influenza vaccine–induced humoral and CD8+ T cell immune responses in mice by simulating the early phase of viral infection without concomitant excess inflammation. Two days after intranasal immunization with PS-GAMP–adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine, strong cross-p...
Source: ScienceNOW - February 19, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Wang, J., Li, P., Yu, Y., Fu, Y., Jiang, H., Lu, M., Sun, Z., Jiang, S., Lu, L., Wu, M. X. Tags: Immunology, Microbiology, Online Only r-articles Source Type: news
It ’s Not Too Late to Prepare for COVID-19
By Dr. Lisa Stone,
Epidemiology Adviser ; Robert Salerno,
Director, Global Health Security
Publio Gonzalez, a biologist with the Gorgas Institute, holds a bat in Meteti, Panama, June 6, 2018, as part an Emerging Infectious Diseases Training Event (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Dustin Mullen).February 11, 2020A disease spillover event, when a virus moves from animal to human hosts, can cause significant human illness. The coronavirus (COVID-19) seems to have spilled over sometime in late 2019, at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China, leading to more than 40,000 confirmed cases and at least 910 reported deaths&n...
Source: IntraHealth International - February 11, 2020 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: kseaton Tags: Infectious Diseases Global Health Security Source Type: news
Coronavirus: government announces new quarantine powers
Virus detection tests will be rolled out to laboratories across the UK Related items fromOnMedica NHS staff, patients and parents urged to get flu vaccine Parental confidence in immunisation programme ‘very high’ BMJ report questions swine flu jab transparency Flu vaccine delays 'likely' with no deal Brexit Prime minister issues call to action on MMR (Source: OnMedica Latest News)
Source: OnMedica Latest News - February 9, 2020 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
The Coronavirus Outbreak Should Bring Out the Best in Humanity
Pandemics are perversely democratic. They’re nasty, lethal and sneaky, but they don’t discriminate. No matter your age, ethnicity, religion, gender, or nation, you’re a part of the pathogenic constituency.
That shared vulnerability, and the resulting human collectivism—a universal response to a universal threat—is newly and vividly evident in the face of the now-global outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV. As of writing, there have been over 30,000 diagnosed cases and over 630 related deaths. A virus that emerged in a single city, Wuhan, China—indeed, in a single crowded ...
Source: TIME: Health - February 8, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized 2019-nCoV Infectious Disease Source Type: news
How Our Modern World Creates Outbreaks Like Coronavirus
“Everyone knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world,” observes Albert Camus in his novel The Plague. “Yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet plagues and wars always take people by surprise.”
Camus was imagining a fictional outbreak of plague in 1948 in Oran, a port city in northwest Algeria. But at a time when the world is reeling from a very real microbial emergency sparked by the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, central China, his observations are as pertinent a...
Source: TIME: Health - February 7, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Mark Honigsbaum Tags: Uncategorized 2019-nCoV health ideas Source Type: news
