Latest healthcare news
SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Ending of the COVID-19 Pandemic
A fascinating comment by Fontanet and others published in The Lancet February 11th 2021 discusses this issue. COVID-19 pandemic has devastated healthcare systems, shutdown schools and communities, and plunged the world into an economic recession. While...
Does one need a second booster vaccination following the first if one has already had COVID-19?
An interesting preprint by Bradley and others in MedRxiv looked at this issue. Current guidelines recommend that individuals who have had COVID-19 should receive the identical vaccine regime as those who have not had infection. This includes two doses of...
How Does the Brain Respond to Beauty?
An interesting article published in the Scientific American this month looked at this fascinating concept. Beauty is elusive – it is sought in nature, art and philosophy, but also in design such as our phones and furniture. It is valued beyond...
Alzheimer’s Disease
This can now be detected by a simple blood test. The Scientific American this month guides us to the fact that there now exists a laboratory test for Alzheimer's disease. Memory loss is a common feature to all of us and can be of no particular...
The COVID-19 Exit Strategy
The editorial published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases dated February 11th 2021 looks at this issue and asks when the global pandemic end will? The question on everyone's mind is; when will this end? Much of the narrative around the pandemic last...
Vaccine Doses; Does Delaying the Second Dose of COVID Vaccine Save Lives?
As Matt Hancock said in a webinar to me, if you have four grandparents and only four vaccines, do you vaccinate all four or do you just vaccinate two? This is a question which we have all been asking and the government appear to have answered. However, the...
Understanding the Variants of SARS-CoV-2
An interesting report by Talha Burki published in The Lancet February 6, 2021 discusses this topic. A new consortium is trying to find out whether the variants of SARS-CoV-2 which are emerging will have different clinical effects. All viruses mutate but the...
The WHO Team Investigating the Origin of COVID-19
An interesting report published in The Lancet 6 February 2020 by John Zarocostas reports on the investigation. With new infections of COVID-19 still spreading rapidly, and health systems stretched to their limits, public Interest is now focused on the WHO...
Early testing can help prevent the development of ovarian cancer
Early testing can help prevent the development of ovarian cancer Dr Angela Rai, The London General Practice Ovarian Cancer is the 6th most common cancer in females in the UK. This cancer arises from the ovaries, which are part of the female reproductive system and are...
The efficacy of Colchicine in non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19
An interesting preprint in medRxiv by Tardif and others published on 26th January 2021 reports new medical research which has yet to be evaluated. Evidence suggests the role of an inflammatory storm in COVID-19 patients. Colchicine is an orally administered,...
