Latest healthcare news

A letter published in The Lancet October 22 by Graham Medley looks at the term which he feels has become layered with political interpretations, label strategies, and feels that they are not clearly defined. It is hoped that at some time shortly there will be a...

 An interesting article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association October 13 by Jennifer Abbasi suggested that nose and throat swab polymerase chain reaction testing could miss up to 50% of COVID-19 cases.  This is due in part because the...

An interesting study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, October 15 2020 by Anderson and others evaluated the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine.  MethodNon-human primates received 10 or 100 mcg of the mRNA-1273 vaccine encoding the profusion stabilised spike...

An interesting article published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases October 15, 2020 by Xia and others did a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 1/2 trial in Shangqui City, Liangyuan District Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Henan Province,...

Efficacy of the Vaccine Candidate BBIBP/CorV in Humans  An interesting article published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases October 15, 2020 by Xia and others did a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 1/2 trial in Shangqui City, Liangyuan District...

Evaluation of the RNA Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2 in Non-Human Primates An interesting study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, October 15 2020 by Anderson and others evaluated theModerna mRNA-1273 vaccine.  Method Non-human primates received 10 or...

Combining Rapid PCR and Antibody Tests Can Improve COVID-19 Diagnosis  An interesting article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association October 13 by Jennifer Abbasi suggested that nose and throat swab polymerase chain reaction testing could...

Facemasks, Testing, Lockdowns and the Association with Country Wide COVID Mortality An interesting preprint updated August 2020 by Leffler and others looked at determining the sources of variation between countries in per capita mortality from COVID-19.  They...

France and COVID-19, How is it Grappling with the Pragmatics of Isolation An interesting comment by Atlani-Dualt & Others published October 9, 2020 in the Lancet Public Health. They suggest that the current phase of COVID-19 is forcing countries to choose between...

What Happened to Obstetric Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic? An interesting correspondence in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal, published 5 October 2020 by Khalil and others reported an increase in stillbirths during the COVID-19 pandemic which was unlikely to...

In-Flight Transmission of SARS-CoV-2, Does it Occur? An interesting article published in the Journal of Travel Medicine September 2020 by David Freedman and Annelies Wilder-Smith looked at this vexing question. They highlighted that the absence of large numbers of...

Mental Health and COVID-19 An informative editorial in the Lancet published October 10, 2020 fears that the investment in mental health has just not happened. They cite the theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day on October 10 which had increased investment in...

Susceptibility to SARS-Cov-2 Infection Among Children and Adolescents Compared with Adults An interesting review and metanalysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association published by Weiner and others in September 2020 looked at the evidence on the...

SARS-CoV-2 Moderna Vaccine, the mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Older Adults Moderna published their safety and immunogenicity data from elderly patients in the New England Journal of Medicine, 29 September 2020, Anderson and others.  They conducted a phase 1, dose...

President Trump has COVID-19, so what are the treatments that he has currently received? Regeneron This is a one shot intravenous drug with a half life of 22 days which he received prior to hospitalisation. The company only announced its trial on 29 September and this...

If You Have Had the Common Cold, are you Protected From COVID-19  An interesting article in Science dated 2 October 2020 by Mateus and others suggested that robust T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 occur in most individuals with COVID-19 disease.  Several...

Susceptibility to SARS-Cov-2 Infection Among Children and Adolescents Compared with Adults An interesting review and metanalysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association published by Weiner and others in September 2020 looked at the evidence on the...

Covid-19 and the Easing of Restrictions.  How can we Learn from Countries in Asia, Pacific and Europe? An interesting article published on health policy in The Lancet September 24, 2020 by Han and others looks at this in great detail. Many countries have...

COVID and Eye Glasses; Should one Wear Glasses in order to PreventCOVID-19 Infection? An interesting article in the Journal of American Medical Associations Ophthalmology report by Xang and others published September 16 looked at the association between daily wearing...

The Association Between Mental Illness and Covid-19 Susceptibility An interesting article published in September 2020 in The Lancet Psychiatry by Professor Juan Lee and others looked at the evidence of the associations between mental illness and the likelihood of a...

Facemasks, Should they be Washed after every use and How Often? Facemasks have become a necessity in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic.  It is now illegal to be on public transport, be in a taxi, be in an Uber or be in a public place without wearing a...

COVID-19 A Global Perspective The Gates Foundation gives us a perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic.  This is in both human terms, country terms, worldwide terms and economic terms.  COVID-19 has killed more than 850,000 people.  It has plunged the world...

Testing for SARS-CoV-2, What is New COVID Nudge  Our friends at Imperial describe their novel, lab free, point of care test for SARS-CoV-2 known as COVID nudge in The Lancet September 17.  This was based on work done by Gibani and Toumazou.  Between...

COVID-19, Can it be Cured? An interesting editorial in The Lancet Infectious Diseases published September 10, 2020 reflects on this question and helps to provide answers. As the COVID-19 pandemic moves into its tenth month, there is a greater patient survival which...