Is handwashing still an important way to reduce the spread of Covid-19?In the early days of the pandemic, public health experts emphasised handwashing as a way to prevent infection and the government launched a “Hands, Face, Space” campaign to encourage people to wash their hands, wear masks and keep 2 metres apart. Subsequent research has [...]
Summary What is already known about this topic? Universal masking is recommended to slow the spread of COVID-19. Cloth masks and medical procedure masks substantially reduce exposure from infected wearers (source control) and reduce exposure of uninfected wearers (wearer exposure). What is added by this report?CDC conducted experiments to assess two ways of improving the fit [...]
From “down under” comes news that is said to be the biggest breakthrough in dairy safety since pasteurization. It has been accepted as “an alternative treatment to pasteurization of raw milk” by Dairy Food Safety Victoria (DFSV) with financial support from both the Queensland state government putting in $190,000 and the Australian Federal Government $761,700. Australia-based [...]
The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine made in two different countries is listed for emergency use, clearing the final hurdle for doses to be distributed by the COVAX program. In other developments, WHO officials said multiple factors are probably responsible for a drop in global cases, and the European Centre [...]
Across the country, states are expanding vaccination criteria and opening mass COVID-19 vaccination sites to an eager population. But, as the New York Times reports, few states claim they have enough vaccine supply to meet demand. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker shows that 70,057,800 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered in the United States, and 52,884,356 [...]
US pediatric non–COVID-19 hospitalizations fell up to 45.4% amid the pandemic and related lockdowns compared with previous years, a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open finds. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of the Pediatric Health Information Systems database of 5,424,688 admissions of 3,372,839 children to 49 hospitals from Jan 1, 2010, to [...]
Health officials in Guinea yesterday reported an Ebola outbreak in the southeast, marking the first reappearance of the virus in the country since West Africa’s massive outbreak that spanned 2014 to 2016. Also, another illness was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is battling a flare-up in North Kivu province, the epicenter [...]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that it has identified nine US cases of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid fever that aren’t linked to travel. The news came in a Health Advisory issued late last week by the CDC, which said that, as of Jan 14, it has received 71 reports of XDR typhoid infections [...]
Background Bedaquiline and delamanid are the first drugs of new classes registered for tuberculosis treatment in 40 years. Each can prolong the QTc interval, with maximum effects occurring weeks after drug initiation. The cardiac safety and microbiological activity of these drugs when co-administered are not well-established. Our aim was to characterise the effects of bedaquiline, delamanid, [...]
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Acute severe neurologic involvement is the most threatening complication in children with hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). Our primary study objectives were to describe the association between acute neurologic manifestations (ANMs) and in-hospital mortality among children with HUS. METHODS: Using the Pediatric Health Information System database, in this retrospective multicenter cohort study, we identified the [...]
