Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
The Minefields Ahead in Long COVID Treatment Development
MedPageToday Video at the link – “For the people hurting and suffering, they need treatment yesterday,” says long COVID expert. Faust: Somebody asked a question about how do you advise doctors who are treating long COVID? I think that’s really difficult, because people want to do something and they want to acknowledge that something’s happening. Then […]
Jan 23, 2024
Bird Flu Has Made a Terrifying Leap That’s Devastated Argentina’s Seal Populations
ScienceAlert Almost 96 percent of Southern elephant seal pups across Argentina born in 2023 have met a tragic end as a highly contagious strain of avian influenza continues to wreak havoc on wildlife. The scale of mortality sparks concerns that the H5N1 strain is now capable of mammal-to-mammal infection. “The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along […]
Jan 23, 2024
New Study Finds Potential Cause of Long COVID Symptoms—Experts Explain
Prevention Researchers say this could lead to diagnostic tests and treatments. Long COVID has mystified the medical community for years, making it a tough condition to diagnose, let alone treat. However, a growing body of research has found more information on what may be behind long COVID, with the hope of eventually finding an effective treatment. Now, a […]
Jan 23, 2024
Why are measles cases popping up across the United States?
CNN Nearly a dozen cases of measles have been reported in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia in recent weeks, according to local health departments. International travel, coupled with declining global vaccination rates, is probably behind this spate of cases, experts say. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has confirmed at least nine cases of measles over the past […]
Jan 23, 2024
Cameroon starts world-first malaria mass vaccine rollout
BBC Video The world’s first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children’s lives across Africa. The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella at a health facility near Yaoundé on Monday. Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, […]
Jan 23, 2024
A Big Misconception About the World’s Greatest Infectious Killer
The Atlantic Growing up in India, which for decades has clocked millions of tuberculosis cases each year, Lalita Ramakrishnan was intimately familiar with how devastating the disease can be. The world’s greatest infectious killer, rivaled only by SARS-CoV-2, Mycobacterium tuberculosis spreads through the air and infiltrates the airways, in many cases destroying the lungs. It can trigger inflammation […]
Jan 16, 2024
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First polar bear to die of bird flu – what are the implications?
Gavi Avian influenza has killed a polar bear and may have infected other bears. Climate change is a threat to polar bear’s survival. Now they have a new deadly challenge facing them: bird flu. It was recently confirmed that a polar bear from northern Alaska has died from the disease. The current strain of H5N1 influenza has […]
Jan 16, 2024
How Covid-19’s symptoms have changed with each new variant
BBC With a new variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus causing a spike in cases, it is demonstrating just how much the disease has changed since the pandemic began – and what happened to “Covid toe”. “For almost four years, I’ve managed to dodge Covid-19,” TV broadcaster Mehdi Hasan tweeted a fortnight ago. “But it finally got […]
Jan 16, 2024
Major Measles Outbreak Erupts In England As Vaccine Hesitancy Increases
Forbes In England, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital is currently grappling with a major outbreak of measles. More than 50 children have been hospitalized in the past month. Vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio remain a public health threat. And with childhood vaccine hesitancy—or simply outright refusal—on the rise in the U.K., U.S. and Europe, […]
Jan 16, 2024
The Dangers of Exercise Therapy to Treat Long Covid Patients
Bloomberg The research compared responses to 8-12 minutes of high-intensity cycling in a group of long Covid patients and a group of healthy people. All 46 of the volunteers had blood and muscle biopsies taken before and after for analysis. All of the long Covid patients experienced a bout of debilitating fatigue known as post-exertional malaise. […]
Jan 16, 2024