Early stage trials of Johnson & Johnson’s experimental coronavirus vaccine show it generated an immune response in nearly all volunteers, with minimal side-effects, after a single dose. The company expects to report details of more advanced trials later this month and is hoping to apply for authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration soon…
COVID-19 pneumonia is much more dangerous than pneumonia with bacterial and other viral infections, scientists from Northwestern University in the United States noted. The study, published in Nature, showed that SARS-CoV-2 does not infect large areas of lung tissue, but penetrates many small areas, after which it captures immune cells in the lungs and uses…
Health care providers should be ready to treat rare cases of allergic reactions after giving COVID-19 vaccines, federal medical officials said. The officials also stressed the importance of continuing to vaccinate patients, despite reports of the rare side effect. There have been 29 cases of severe allergic reactions known as anaphylaxis following administration of a COVID-19 vaccine, officials from…
A European study found patients with mild cases of COVID-19 were much more likely to report losing their sense of smell than patients with moderate to critical cases. Almost all the patients got their sense of smell back within 6 months, the study said. Researchers questioned and observed 2,581 COVID-19 patients from 18 European hospitals from March…
Obesity is considered one of the biggest risk factors for complications from COVID-19. American scientists have found that being overweight can also increase the risk of contracting coronavirus. According to medportal.ru, patients with a high body mass index (BMI) often have respiratory dysfunction, in which unwanted changes in respiratory mechanisms occur, increased airway resistance, impaired…
A tube inserted into the nostrils to dull the sense of smell may be an effective new method of weight loss. People on a strict diet and using this device for three months lost twice as much weight as those who were just on the diet, Obesity Facts reported. According to The Daily Mail, the…
The COVID-19 pandemic is terrible not only because it is killing people, but also because it will lead to the spread of antibiotic resistance in the future, which in turn will kill many people, the PLOS Pathogens journal reports. According to MedicalXpress, about 10 million people are expected to die each year due to resistant…
Loperamide, a drug used to treat diarrhea, can induce cell death in cultured glioblastoma, a deadly and incurable form of brain tumor that usually does not respond well to chemotherapy, said scientists from the Goethe University in Frankfurt. According to MedicalXpress, the authors of the study found that in some types of tumor cells, loperamide…
First, the good news: The Moderna vaccine will likely be going into people’s arms Monday, boosting the number of Americans who will start getting inoculated against Covid-19. Now, the bad news: Most Americans can’t get vaccinated until next year. In the meantime, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths keep soaring, prompting health experts to urge the…
The overwhelming amount of loss we’ve experienced during this pandemic is in stark contrast to what is supposedly the happiest time of the year. Nine months to a year into the crisis, depending on where you live, nearly 2 million people around the world have died from Covid-19. And that’s in addition to the thousands more…
