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Neurological complications linked to COVID-19 occurring globally — University of Liverpool review
A review by University of Liverpool researchers has shown that strokes, delirium and other brain complications are reported from most countries where there have...
Blacks at doubled higher risk for COVID-19 — University of Chicago analysis
Results of an analysis has found that Black individuals were twice as likely as White individuals to test positive for COVID-19. The average age...
Pre-clinical study supports remdesivir as COVID-19 treatment
The news about remdesivir, the investigational anti-viral drug that has shown early promise in the fight against COVID-19, keeps getting better. Researchers at Vanderbilt...
Hyperglycaemia link to higher COVID-19 mortality in those not previously diagnosed as diabetic
Research from Wuhan, China shows that, in patients with COVID-19 but without a previous diagnosis of diabetes, abnormally high blood sugar is associated with...
Persistence of at least one symptom in almost 90% of recovered COVID-19 Italian patients
In Italy, a large proportion of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presented with symptoms (71.4% of 31 845 confirmed cases as of 3 June,...
Older, critical COVID-19 patients may have increased risk of bradycardia with lopinavir and ritonavir
Older, critically ill patients with COVID-19 who received a combination of the antiretroviral medications lopinavir and ritonavir experienced bradycardia, a slow heart rate, more...
COVID-19 outcomes and immune function in people with HIV — NY cohort study
People living with HIV spent a similar amount of time in hospital as HIV-negative COVID-19 patients and had a comparable death rate during the...
Schools have not developed into hotspots — ongoing German study
The medical faculty of the TU Dresden and Dresden University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus started a study on the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus...
Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Spain: Nationwide, population-based sero-epidemiological study
Summary
Background: Spain is one of the European countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Serological surveys are a valuable tool to assess the extent...
SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in COVID-19 hotspots – Lancet comment
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has surprised the world with its range of disease manifestations, from asymptomatic infection to critical illness leading...
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-sponsored phase 1 trial tested mRNA vaccine
An investigational vaccine designed to protect against COVID-19 was generally well tolerated and prompted neutralising activity in healthy adults, according to interim results. The...
Comorbidities increase death risk twelvefold — US Centres for Disease Control
People with chronic health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes were hospitalised six times more often than otherwise healthy individuals infected with the...
Grave medical journal failures force peer review rethink
Some of the world’s leading medical journals are reviewing their processes after they were forced to retract major covid studies based on flawed data,...
Most first-wave COVID-19 clinical trials have 'major design shortcomings'
Most of the registered clinical trials of potential treatments for COVID-19 underway as of late March were designed in ways that will greatly limit...
Cape Town's BCG trials threatened by demands from advocacy group
A critical 500-person Cape Town trial, part of an international examination into whether the BCG vaccine protects against COVID-19, is under pressure from demands...
Authors say review linking vegetarianism and depression 'misinterpreted'
The nuance of a study showing a link between vegetarianism and poor mental health got lost as the study was shared widely online, reports...
Pandemic urgency sees peer review 'outsourced' to practising doctors and journalists
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen "droves of research papers rushed to pre-print servers, essentially outsourcing peer review to practising physicians and journalists", write ethicists...
Serological survey results trickling in but caution advised on interpretation
Results from the first studies designed to determine how widely the coronavirus has spread in communities have started to trickle in, drawing immense attention....
How important are the racial differences in COVID-19 data?
Claims that the racial disparities to be seen in US pandemic data evidence of are evidence of systemic racism rests on a false presumption,...
And why the sex differences in Covid-19 susceptibility?
Most day-to-day diseases don’t seem to care what sex you are: man or woman, those coughs, colds and stomach bugs latch on regardless. But,...
Minimising the effect of China's wet markets stems from a Western failing
The unwillingness of the authors of a recent study in Nature Medicine, to minimise moral or socio-political conclusions — in this case between Chinese...
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...
Decisions on COVID-19 made without reliable evidence
A once-in-a-century pandemic. But, writes John PA Ioannidis, professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science and of statistics at...
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...
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...
American Heart Association retracts e-cigarette study
In a rare decision, the Journal of the American Heart Association announced the retraction of a widely publicised study claiming vaping increased the likelihood...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
WHO's malaria vaccine study a 'serious breach of ethical standards'
A large-scale malaria vaccine study led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been criticised by a leading bioethicist for committing a “serious breach”...
Researchers question new guidelines on aspirin in primary prevention
There has been considerable confusion from three large-scale randomised trials of aspirin in high risk primary prevention subjects, leaving doctors understandably confused about whether...
Chinese research that coronavirus passed from pangolins questioned
Independent scientists have questioned research that suggested that the outbreak of coronavirus disease spreading from China might have passed from bats to humans through...
Call for top UK geneticist to resign over a decade of research fraud
A row over scientific fraud at the highest level of British academia has led to calls for one of the country’s leading geneticists and...
Curb chronic inflammation to reduce risk of chronic disease mortality
The group of international experts, which also includes scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, Columbia University Medical Centre...
South Africa shines in global overview of HIV/Aids research excellence
A global analysis of four years of HIV/Aids research identifies the US as research leader in the field, followed by the UK and South...