TB Vaccine More Powerful When Given Intravenously
Latest Infectious Disease News THURSDAY, Jan. 2, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The tuberculosis (TB) vaccine is far from infallible, but new animal research suggests the problem is not the vaccine but how it is delivered. When given to monkeys intravenously rather than as an injection, the vaccine was much more effective, researchers from […]
AHA News: 32-Year-Old Mom Faces ‘Widow Maker’
Latest Heart News THURSDAY, Jan. 2, 2020 (American Heart Association News) — Ever since Ashli Stewart was a kid, people have told her that she’s old at heart. Raised by a single mother, Stewart often made dinner and helped her little brother with his homework. Today, as a mother of three and an […]
‘It’s So Much Worse This Time,’ Exhausted ICU Nurse Says Of Current COVID-19 Surge
Working frantically to help COVID patients in 2020 was hellish, declared a registered nurse in Nashville, Tennessee, who started work just last year. But it’s nothing compared to now. “For months, as a nurse intern, I’d watched the battle-weary nurses emerge from COVID rooms, taking off their PPE like warriors stripping off armor, their faces […]
2020 Was Not a Good Year for Infection Control
Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) in acute care hospitals soared during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, potentially erasing years of progress in combating these infections, researchers said. Significant increases in the national standardized infection ratios for central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, ventilator-associated events, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia were noted in 2020 over […]
The COVID-Flu ‘Twindemic’ That Wasn’t
Influenza and several other respiratory viruses declined in circulation during the pandemic in 2020, but increased during the spring of 2021, researchers found. Flu activity declined in March of 2020, remaining low until May 2021, with less than 0.4% of respiratory samples testing positive for influenza per week of flu season, reported Sonja J. Olsen, […]
U.S. Life Expectancy Takes Big Hit From COVID
Substantial decreases in mortality in 2020 from the usual big killers, including cancer, heart disease, and chronic lung diseases, ended up swamped by deaths from COVID-19, researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) confirmed. Overall life expectancy in the U.S. declined 1.5 years in 2020 versus 2019, from 78.8 to 77.3 — by […]
Raise a Glass? Study Tallies Cancer Cases From Booze
More than 700,000 new cases of cancer worldwide in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption, according to a population-based modeling study. Men accounted for about three-quarters of these cancer cases, which most commonly affected the esophagus and liver, reported Harriet Rumgay, BSc, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s Cancer Surveillance Branch in Lyon, […]
The Murky Post-Pandemic Future of Hepatitis C Elimination in the U.S.
About 25% fewer patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) were initiated on treatment in 2020 compared with 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though the WHO target for elimination may not be entirely out of reach, a researcher said. If HCV programs are able to rebound from the pandemic and return to their original forecast, […]