Disease/Infection News

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Reusing masks may increase your risk of coronavirus infection, expert says

Panic buying and the hoarding of face masks to protect from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) may not be a good idea, says a health expert. It puts you at an increased risk of contracting the virus.

15 Mar 2020

Testing shortages force extreme shift in strategy by local health officials

Public health officials in California's state capital region announced this week they have stopped tracing the contacts of patients diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. They've also ceased recommending quarantines for residents exposed to people confirmed to have the virus.

13 Mar 2020

Looking for answers after coronavirus contact? Welcome to the gray zone

Liz Lucas got a call Tuesday afternoon from a friend she'd interacted with closely at a journalism conference in New Orleans days earlier who had tested presumptively positive for coronavirus. She wondered what this meant for her and those around her, so she reached out to local and state health officials in Missouri for guidance.

13 Mar 2020

Experts call for older people to be considered in global responses to coronavirus

Current guidance on coronavirus “largely ignores” the implications for public health and clinical responses in light of those most at risk, according to an international group of global health experts.

13 Mar 2020

Disease -related Wikipedia page view counts show impact of news media on public attention

During the 2016 Zika outbreak, news exposure appears to have had a far bigger impact than local disease risk on the number of times people visited Zika-related Wikipedia pages in the U.S. Michele Tizzoni and colleagues at the ISI Foundation in Turin, Italy, present these findings in PLOS Computational Biology.

13 Mar 2020

Study estimates the asymptomatic transmission rate of novel coronavirus

Infectious disease researchers at The University of Texas at Austin studying the novel coronavirus were able to identify how quickly the virus can spread, a factor that may help public health officials in their efforts at containment.

13 Mar 2020

Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal review: COVID-19 appears less severe in children

As outbreaks of COVID-19 disease caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continue worldwide, there's reassuring evidence that children have fewer symptoms and less severe disease.

13 Mar 2020

New method will enable production of tailor-made vaccines

Vaccines can be far more targeted and effective than they are today. A new method will allow us to develop new vaccines more cheaply and efficiently and perhaps get one step ahead of bacteria.

13 Mar 2020

Digital intervention effective at reducing the spread of viral respiratory tract infections

A scientifically tested digital intervention created by the University of Southampton has already proved to be effective at reducing the spread of viral respiratory tract infections – such as colds and flu.

13 Mar 2020

Fecal Microbiota Transplants highly successful in treating patients with C.diff infection

A new study from the University of Birmingham has shown that Fecal Microbiota Transplants (FMT) are highly successful in treating patients with Clostridioides difficile (C.diff) infection.

13 Mar 2020

The coronavirus, the congressman and me

I got the COVID-19 text at 8:30 Tuesday night, three days after returning from a journalism conference in New Orleans.

13 Mar 2020

Trump wrongly said health insurers will pay for all coronavirus treatment

As coronavirus cases multiply in the United States, one concern Americans have is what they can expect to pay if they seek treatment.

13 Mar 2020

Estimated 10,000 people in UK may have COVID-19

Around the globe, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has sparked a major health crisis as many countries grapple with increasing confirmed infections and deaths. Italy, Iran, and South Korea struggle as they are the countries with the highest number of cases outside mainland China. But, health expert fears that there may be about 10,000 people infected with the coronavirus in the United Kingdom.

13 Mar 2020

Triple therapies effective and safe in malaria

A new study describing the outcome of a clinical trial of two malaria treatment protocols involving the use of triple therapies based on artemisinin reports their high efficacy and low adverse effects.

12 Mar 2020

'Flattening the curve' - why is it important for coronavirus?

With the emergence of the novel coronavirus and the propagation of the infectious disease COVID-19 around the world, everyone is talking about 'flattening the curve'. But what does this mean, and why is it so important?

12 Mar 2020

What does COVID-19 do to the body?

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, also known as 2019-nCoV, is the virus that causes COVID-19, and that is spreading throughout the world is causing panic in almost all countries. With a death rate ranging from 1% to 2% in young patients but about 5%-8% in elderly and sick patients, it is capable of ravaging multiple organ systems in the human body.

12 Mar 2020