Latest healthcare news
Mental Health and Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic
An interesting article published in medRxiv January 2020 looked at the evidence as a preprint to determine the rates and predictors of uptake of formal and informal mental health support. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a great strain on people's mental...
What Proportion of COVID-19 Spread is Associated with the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from Persons with No Symptoms?
An interesting article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at this important subject. SARS-CoV-2 is readily transmitted person to person. Optimal control of COVID-19 depends on direct resources and health messaging to ...
What is Better, Nasopharyngeal Swabs or Saliva for the Sensitivity of Testing for SARS-CoV-2 Infection?
An interesting article published by Bastos and others in the Annals of Internal Medicine investigated this issue. Nasopharyngeal swabs are the primary sampling method used for the detection of SARS-CoV-2, but they are better performed by a...
On the Coronavirus Vaccination
The Daily Telegraph provided a very intuitive synopsis on the Oxford, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Presently, the largest mass vaccination programme in British history is underway, with the target of millions of vaccinations being administered by spring...
Advice on priority groups of COVID-19 vaccination from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published 30 December 2020.
They considered all two current vaccinations and these were their findings. Pfizer-BioNTechThe committee reviewed published and unpublished phase one, two and three safety and efficacy data for the Pfizer BioNTech mRNA vaccine. They found that the vaccine appeared...
Long Term Follow Up Of Covid-19 Patients
An interesting comment in The Lancet published January 8, 2021, long term follow up of recovered patients with COVID-19. By early January 2021, COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in more than 83 million confirmed cases and more than...
SARS-CoV-2 and Vaccination
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 disease first emerged as a cause of severe respiratory infection in Wuhan. The first two cases in the United Kingdom were seen in late January 2020. In March 2020, The World Health Organization declared a SARS-CoV 2...
Cervical Screening
Early testing can help prevent the development of Cervical cancer. Latest figures show less than three-quarters of women invited for cervical screening take it up. Cancer Research UK believes this is part of the reason why cervical cancer still affects over 3 000...
Covid-19- The New Variant & Lockdown
The new variant of SARS-CoV-2 in UK causing a surge of COVID-19. An interesting article published January 4 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine Journal by Tony Kirby looked at the effects of lockdowns and the new variant. For most of November 2020...
Determining the Infectious Potential of Individuals with a Positive PCR SARS-CoV-2 Test
An interesting preprint by Doshi from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Baltimore looked at this issue. It was published by the Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Efforts to control the spread of contagious disease...
