Latest healthcare news
Cervical Cancer Screening in Older Women
Half of cervical cancer deaths in England now occur in women aged over 65. Most women in the NHS cervical screening programme aged over 65 have never had a test for human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV testing of cervical samples has now replaced cytology for primary...
Vaccine Snippets
Professor Justin Stebbing in his weekly science update looks at the current research. The risk of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is significantly lower amongst patients who had received at least one dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine compared to an...
Social Distancing, Is It Being Complied With?
An interesting article published in PLOS1 March 15th 2021 by Hoben and others reviewed this question. They analysed CCTV clips to assess people's behaviour in public spaces. They concluded that compliance with social distancing directives appeared to...
Does a Good Night’s Sleep Improve the Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccine?
An interesting commentary published in The Lancet March 12th by Benedict and Cedernaes discusses this issue. Within an extraordinarily swift timeframe vaccines to control the COVID-19 pandemic have been developed using either an mRNA protein subunit or...
Are Patients who Suffer with Gout an Under Recognised Group at High Risk of COVID-19?
An interesting article published by Dalbeth and Robinson in The Lancet rheumatology March 9th 2021 discusses this issue. There has been a rapid acceleration in the understanding of predictors for poor outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection since first reports of...
Smoking and COVID-19 Risk
An article published by Hopkinson and others in the British Medical Journal Thorax looked at this important issue. They tried to associate current tobacco smoking with the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 and the severity of illness. They looked at the...
Is There An Association Between Influenza Vaccination and Hospitalisation Or All-Cause Mortality In Patients With COVID-19?
An interesting retrospective cohort study by Wilcox and others published in the BMJ Open Respiratory Research Journals suggested that influenza vaccination may offer some protection against COVID-19 severity. The study used routinely collected health records...
America appears to be Ahead of us in What You Are Allowed to do Following Full Vaccination
The CDC in America has published guidelines for what you can and cannot do when you have been fully vaccinated. Here in the United Kingdom we must abide by the guidelines as set out by the Government and Public Health England. It is, however, interesting to...
Body Mass Index and the Risk of Severe COVID-19 Requiring Hospitalisation, ITU Admission and Invassive Mechanical Ventilation
The CDC in their weekly morbidity and mortality report March 12th 2021 looked at this issue. They found that individuals with a BMI near the threshold between healthy weight and overweight generally had the lowest risk for hospitalisations, ICU admission and...
Does having been vaccinated by other non COVID-19 vaccines protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection?
An interesting article published by Pawlowski and others in Scientific Reports published 26th February 2021 investigated this issue. Conventionally, vaccinations are intended to train the adaptive immune system by generating an antigen specific immune...
