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Coronavirus Watch
Germany may use smartphone tracking to isolate COVID-19 patients
Germany has proposed using big data and location tracking to isolate people with coronavirus to keep the pandemic under control once social distancing measures...
Australia fast-tracks trial of BCG vaccine for COVID-19 on 4,000 health workers
Australian researchers are fast-tracking large-scale human testing to see if a vaccine used for decades to prevent tuberculosis can protect health workers from COVID-19,...
WHO guidelines on wearing of masks: 'Yes, but…'
To wear or not to wear? That has become the key question during the pandemic as the face mask has become a symbol of...
SA Society of Anaesthesiologists: Initial COVID-19 guidance
The South African Society of Anaesthesiologists (SASA) has used the opportunity of the 2020 SASA Congress to develop an initial COVID-19 guidance for members....
NICD's guidelines for SA's GPs in treating COVID-19
For many people suspecting they've been infected with the new coronavirus, general practitioners (GPs) will be the first people they turn to. News24 reports...
Most cases 'mild’ and lockdown will flatten the curve — Mkhize
Despite exponential daily increases in coronavirus infections over the past few day, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize is confident that the national lockdown will see...
HIV and COVID-19: US Dept of Health guidelines; SA Clinicians Society position statement
The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society has released a position statement on COVID-19 and persons with HIV.
It said:
At the moment, very little is known...
UK guidelines on selecting COVID-19 patients for critical care
Official guidance has been issued to UK's National Health Service (NHS) intensive care doctors on how to decide which coronavirus patients should get critical...
Health sector exempted from some provisions of Competition Act
The government has moved to give the health sector greater flexibility in dealing with South Africa’s COVID-19 epidemic, exempting it from aspects of the...
FDA authorises use of rapid COVID-19 diagnostic test
The US Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorisation for a point-of-care COVID-19 diagnostic for the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test....
COVID-19: Large China study finds children not exempt from falling seriously ill
The coronavirus raging around the globe has tended to tread gently with children, who account for the smallest percentage of the infections identified so...
SA joins global COVID-19 trial
South Africa is one of 10 countries involved in an urgent global trial announced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to identify the most...
325 Wits students in self-quarantine are cleared of COVID-19
More than 300 medical students who were encouraged to go into self-quarantine after a fellow student tested positive for COVID-19, have been cleared. The...
World in lockdown as global infections exceed 200,000
Emergencies were declared in SA and Australia while the EU sealed its borders and infections surfaced in every state in the USA, writes MedicalBrief. In the UK, a chilling modelling...
Nurofen producer rejects French warnings that ibuprofen may worsen COVID-19
Nurofen producer Reckitt Benckiser sought to quash warnings against taking the drug, saying it was not aware of any evidence that the pills’ active...
Gauteng gets court order over Covid-19 positive family that refused quarantine
Gauteng Health says a family that refused to be quarantined after testing positive for coronavirus on Monday has been found and placed in a...
FDA issues emergency authorisation for Roche's faster coronavirus test
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued emergency authorisation for a faster coronavirus test made by Swiss diagnostics maker Roche, a move...
Older people not being considered in national and global planning on COVID-19
The largest numbers of deaths will occur among older people in low and middle-income countries, yet the global response neglects this group, write researchers...
Most vaccinologists think COVID-19 vaccine 'unlikely for 18 months'
Even at their most effective – and draconian – containment strategies have only slowed the spread of the respiratory disease COVID-19. With the World...
J&J warns there is 'no evidence' that its HIV drug a treatment for COVID-19
Johnson & Johnson has announced that it has no evidence its HIV drug, Prezista, had any effect on patients suffering from the disease caused...
Study looks at stability of COVID-19 in aerosols and on surfaces
The virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces, according to a new...
SA follows international best practice in tackling COVID-19
International health experts have made it clear that the challenge to be faced by developing countries in tackling COVID-19 will be of a different...
UK's new-born baby with COVID-19 confounds Chinese statistical analysis
Early on Saturday morning the news broke that a new-born baby had tested positive for coronavirus in a London hospital. The case is striking...
Strategic approach to COVID-19: Making sense of the 'knowns unknowns'
For a government's strategic planners, what is not known is as important as what is known, when it comes to thinking about the coronavirus,...
HSRC conducting survey on SA public's knowledge of COVID-19
The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has announced that it would conduct a public survey, via social media and some follow-up qualitative studies, to...
COVID-19 spreading quickly and before symptoms appear
Coronavirus spreads quickly and sometimes before people have symptoms, a study found. Infectious disease researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, Institut Pasteur...
Overview of coronavirus infections, including COVID-19, in children
Like previous epidemic coronaviruses, "SARS-CoV-2 (seems) to cause fewer symptoms and less severe disease in children compared with adults," according to the review by...
American Chemical Society overview of potential therapeutic agents and vaccines for COVID-19
Since the first reports of a new coronavirus disease in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the globe, threatening a...
In early stages, even moderate interventions help reduce spread of COVID-19
COVID-19 infections may be much higher, but even moderate interventions can help reduce spread. "This suggests that the opportunity window to contain the epidemic...
First analysis of potential targets for immune response — J Craig Venter and La Jolla institutes
A team of researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, in collaboration with researchers at the J Craig Venter Institute, provides the first analysis...
Mortality risk factors in adults hospitalised with COVID-19 — small China study
Specifically, being of an older age, having a high Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, and having d-dimer greater than 1 μg/mL are the...
Coronavirus infected monkeys that recovered developed effective immunity
Tests on monkeys suggest that patients who appear to have been "re-infected" may have been presenting symptoms from the same infection, reports The Daily...
New analysis estimates 5.1 days for COVID-19 incubation
An analysis of publicly available data on infections from the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19 yielded an estimate of 5.1...
Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19
Researchers at the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases have tried to estimate the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using data...
Chest CT findings in COVID-19 pneumonia — multicentre study
A multi-centre study (n=101) of the relationship between chest CT findings and the clinical conditions of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia determined that most patients...
COVID-19 demands 2x daily decontamination — Singapore study
New research from the Singapore National Centre for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories has found that patients with the coronavirus extensively contaminate their...
China gives green light for Actemra to treat COVID-19 patients with lung disease
China has given a green light to use Roche’s anti-inflammatory drug Actemra in coronavirus patients with lung complications as it tries to find ways...
Coronavirus: Are women and children less affected?
Most people will get a mild infection, but the pattern is clear in the most severe cases. So, what is going on, asks a...
Mining industry announces measures to deal with COVID-19
With COVID-19 cases confirmed in South Africa, the Minerals Council South Africa has emphasised the importance of mitigating measures that need to be implemented...
Vulnerable Taiwan hailed for its successful response to COVID-19
With some 850,000 Taiwanese living and working in China, Taiwan could have been one of the hardest hit when the coronavirus outbreak emerged in...