Latest healthcare news

The Immune Responses and Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 Immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 involve both the cell-mediated immunity and antibody production and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control discussed the following. Cell-Mediated Immune Response T-cell...

A Few Statistics Comparing SARS-CoV-2 with SARS-CoV and Influenza Pandemics An interesting personal view by Professor Eskild Petersen and others in The Lancet published July 3 has some interesting characteristics when comparing the four different viral...

SARS-CoV-2 Virus - where did it come from and where did it evolve? The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control discusses that a meta-analysis of different estimates of the time to the last common ancestor of the virus indicate that the pandemic started...

Can You Go Back to The Gym?  Should Gyms Be Re-Opened? An interesting pre-print by the TRAiN study group in Norway investigated SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission and COVID-19 disease attributable to training facilities. They randomised 18 to 64 years old with no...

SARS-CoV-2 Testing, How Frequent and How Specific? An interesting article from a group in Harvard tried to gauge the importance of test sensitivity and frequency, looking at viral spread in a large group of people.  They found that weekly surveillance testing,...

Face Masks, What Type Should You Wear? According to Scientific American, the Indiana Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering have developed a material which renders infectious particles harmless when passed by hands to the front of masks.  The team have...

COVID-19, Is There Going to be a Second Wave? An editorial by Richard Horton in The Lancet 27 June discusses the spectre of a second wave of COVID-19.  Some infectious disease specialists believe that SARS-CoV-2 might be losing virulence.  However, some are...

What are the Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Complications of COVID-19? These were evaluated in 153 patients within a UK-wide surveillance study by Varatharaj and others published in The Lancet Psychiatry June 25, 2020.  There is increased concern regarding...

Alcohol, COVID-19 and Lockdown Data from the Office for National Statistics has shown that sales in alcohol stores during March increased on a month-on-month volume by 31.4%. Alcohol consumption patterns also altered.  According to a survey by the charity Alcohol...

The antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in patients with COVID19 An interesting article by Quan-Xin Long and others looked at the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in 285 patients with COVID-19.  They found that within 19 days following symptom onset, 100% of patients...

Who shows evidence of past SARS-CoV-2 infection? An interesting article by Silvia Stringhini and others published in The Lancet June 2020 assessed the burden of COVID-19 within a population of Geneva.  They found that children between the age of 5 and 9 and those...

Advance in Treatment as Confirmed by Boris Johnson for COVID-19 Infection Last Week Dexamethasone This is a cheap, accessible steroid which has been available for many years.  The real breakthrough was that the recovery trial undertaken by the University of...

How much of the World’s population is at an increased risk of severe COVID-19 disease? A study published by Andrew Clark and others in The Lancet tried to answer this question. The risk of severe COVID-19 disease is known to be higher in older individuals and those...

How does the SARS-CoV-2 virus enter the human body? Ludovico Cantuti-Castelvetri and others have identified a new possible pathway through which the SARS-CoV-2 enters into the central nervous system.  SARS-CoV-2 uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 as a host...

What is the dominant route for the spread of Covid-19? Zhang and others published a research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, PNAS.  They analysed the trend and mitigation measures in three epicentres...

What is the Culprit in the COVID-19 Disease? The Lancet Infectious Disease Journal highlights a comment by Yi and others, which helps to identify a possible route for transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the human and its resultant effect.  The COVID-19...

Does high cholesterol lead to more severe COVID-19 infection? An abstract by Hao Wang & others revealed that when they loaded cells with cholesterol from blood serum using transport in apolipoprotein E this enhanced the endocytic entry of SARS-CoV-2.  High...

Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection: What is the next step after lockdown? An important challenge for returning to normality is the prevalence of asymptomatic infection and the question of whether such individuals could sustain community virus transmission.  Two...

Why have deaths from COVID-19 plateaued in Europe? Is this due to herd immunity? Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be in marked decline in many countries in Europe, North America and parts of Asia.  This follows unprecedented governmental interventions, which...

Physical distancing, face masks and eye protection, do they prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19? A review published in The Lancet by Derek Chu and others June 1, 2020. The authors aimed to investigate the effects of physical distance, face...

COVID-19 and Anti-inflammatories Initially, due to a French diplomat, it was suggested that anti-inflammatories such as Ibuprofen or Voltarol should not be taken by those patients who might be at risk of developing COVID-19 or being subject to coronavirus...

Blood Group and Severity of COVID-19  It has been found that having type A blood is linked to a 50% increase in the likelihood that a patient would need oxygen or have to go on a ventilator. This was from a pre-print and not peer reviewed article by Ellinghouse...

COVID-19 Vaccine Development, Where Are We? This is neatly discussed by Nelson Lean and Allison McGeer in a comment article in The Lancet dated May 28, 2020. Clearly, developing a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is a global priority. Researchers in China,...

Food insecurity.  Will this be the sting in the tail following the COVID-19 pandemic? An interesting editorial in The Lancet Global Health discusses the situation in poorer countries following COVID-19 infection.  UNICEF published a discussion documented on...

COVID-19 coagulopathy, the evolving story of the clotting disorders associated with COVID-19 COVID-19 has affected over 4 million people worldwide, spreading across the continents.  The substantial mortality in at-risk groups is noted and also the multiple...