Most long COVID patients should see a Rheumatologist

A McMaster University-led study has found that most people infected with the SARS-CoV2 virus recover within 12 months, irrespective of the severity. However, although 75 per cent had recovered at the 12-month mark after becoming ill with the virus, 25 per cent of patients still had at least one of the three most common symptoms, including coughing, fatigue and breathlessness. […]

COVID-19 increases risks of neurological problems

Persons infected with the COVID-19 virus are at an increased risk of developing  neurological conditions in the first year after infection, researchers reported on Sept. 22 in Nature Medicine. “Our study provides a comprehensive assessment of the long-term neurologic consequences of COVID-19,” said senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Director of […]

Chlamydia’s stealthy cloaking device identified

Chlamydia, the leading cause of sexually transmitted bacterial infections, evades detection and elimination inside human cells by use of a cloaking device. But Duke University researchers have grasped the hem of that invisibility cloak and now hope they can pull it apart. To enter the cell and peacefully reproduce, many pathogenic bacteria, including Chlamydia, cloak themselves in a piece of […]

Monkeypox linked to encephalitis or confusion in some patients

Monkeypox can sometimes lead to neurological complications such as encephalitis (brain inflammation), confusion or seizures, finds a new review of evidence led by a UCL researcher. Several studies incorporated in the systematic review and meta-analysis of evidence, published in eClinicalMedicine, also found that muscle aches, fatigue, headache, anxiety and depression were all relatively common among monkeypox patients. Across the studies with […]

NIH experts review monkeypox challenges

Lessons learned from the public health responses to the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics should help guide the response to the current outbreak of monkeypox, National Institutes of Health experts write in an editorial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and H. Clifford Lane, […]

IL-13 blocker dupilumab appears to improve survival in COVID-19

Treatment with dupilumab appears to improve survival rates for patients with moderate to severe COVID-19. Researchers reported these findings on August 16, 2022 in Open Forum of Infectious Diseases. “Our clinical trial suggests that treatment with the anti-allergy medicine dupilumab may decrease deaths due to COVID-19. UVA [University of Virginia] is the first to test this novel and promising approach […]

How did the early COVID-19 pandemic affect cancer survivors?

Recent research indicates that during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the proportion of working-aged U.S. adults without health insurance did not change despite increases in unemployment, and the prevalence of unhealthy behaviors decreased. The findings, which were published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, pertained to individuals with and without a history of cancer. […]

BCG vaccine appears to protect patients with type 1 diabetes from COVID-19 infection

Multiple does of the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine appears to offer patients with type 1 diabetes strong protection against COVID-19, researchers reported on August 15, 2022 in Cell Reports. “Multiple studies have shown that adults with type 1 diabetes who are diagnosed with COVID-19 are at increased risk of severe illness,” said lead Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the […]

How hepatitis E tricks the immune system

Over three million people are infected with the hepatitis E virus every year. So far, no effective treatment is available. An international team has investigated which factors are important for the virus in the course of its replication cycle and how it manages to maintain the infection. The researchers analysed various mutations of the virus and found changes that may […]

New COVID-19 rapid-test technology performs PCR faster than similar tests on the market

For more than 30 years, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been the gold standard in molecular diagnostic testing, detecting genetic material, such as those from a virus or from human DNA. But PCR, including reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), is mostly done at large, centralized laboratories, not in point-of-care (POC) settings, because its instrumentation is bulky, expensive, takes a […]