Category Archives: Medical research

Hydroxychloroquine sales spiked almost 100% in Australia at start of Covid pandemic, study finds

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There was also a rise in prescriptions for ivermectin being filled, despite no evidence either drug is effective against the virus

The amount of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin dispensed from Australian pharmacies increased significantly in 2020 as the Covid pandemic took hold, according to new research.

Analysis of six publicly subsidised drugs – including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, corticosteroids and the common antibiotic azithromycin – found Covid-related changes in prescription patterns in Australia.

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Dutch scientists may have solved mystery of why some twins are identical

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Discovery of DNA modifications raises hope of treatment for disorders that particularly afflict twins

The medical mystery of what causes some twins to be born identical may have been solved by scientists in the Netherlands, raising hopes for treatment of congenital disorders that disproportionately afflict them.

Identical twins form after a fertilised egg, called a zygote, splits into two embryos sharing exactly the same genes. The reason for the split is unknown.

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Covid can infect cells in pancreas that make insulin, research shows

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Results of two studies may explain why some people develop diabetes after catching the virus

Covid-19 can infect insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and change their function, potentially explaining why some previously healthy people develop diabetes after catching the virus.

Doctors are increasingly concerned about the growing number of patients who have developed diabetes either while infected with coronavirus, or shortly after recovering from it.

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Covid has wiped out years of progress on life expectancy, finds study

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Pandemic behind biggest fall in life expectancy in western Europe since second world war, say researchers

The Covid pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy in western Europe since the second world war, according to a study.

Data from most of the 29 countries – spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – that were analysed by scientists recorded reductions in life expectancy last year and at a scale that wiped out years of progress.

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Fraudulent ivermectin studies open up new battleground between science and misinformation

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Studies suggesting ivermectin is an effective Covid treatment relied on evidence ‘that has substantially evaporated under close scrutiny’, fresh research shows

Dr Carlos Chaccour ran into difficulty when he and his colleagues began recruiting patients in Peru for their study to determine the effect of a daily dose of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin on people infected with Covid-19.

“We would call the patient and say, ‘You have just been diagnosed with Covid and you’re eligible for this study. Are you taking ivermectin?’” he says.

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‘Highly effective’ ovarian cancer treatment could help thousands of women

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New drug combination shrunk tumours significantly in 46% of patients with treatment-resistant form of disease

Thousands of women with ovarian cancer could benefit from a revolutionary drug combination after it was shown to shrink tumours in half of patients with an advanced form of the disease.

The pair of drugs – which work together to block the signals cancer cells need to grow – could offer a new treatment option for women with a type of ovarian cancer that rarely responds to chemotherapy or hormone therapy.

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Australia Covid live news update: Victoria records 507 new cases and one death ahead of reopening roadmap release; pools to open across Sydney

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Premier Dan Andrews is to release Victoria’s roadmap out of lockdown a day after protests in Melbourne, Sydney, Byron Bay and Brisbane. Follow updates live

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, is holding a press conference in Brisbane. The state has recorded no new cases of Covid-19 in the community or in hotel quarantine.

Palaszczuk is urging people to get vaccinated after the state controversially made the Pfizer vaccine available to over 60s. She’s urging people to attend walk-in Pfizer clinics.

This is an interesting piece on the people for whom the end of Covid restrictions sparks fear rather than joy.

Racquel Sherry, 49 and based in Sydney, is immunocompromised and afraid.

In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’.

Freedom day doesn’t include me.

Related: ‘Freedom day doesn’t include me’: for some, the end of lockdown will be a time of fear

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Ministers told to bar EU from UK trial data in vaccines row

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England’s deputy medical chief asked for data to be withheld unless British vaccine guinea pigs allowed to travel abroad

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England’s deputy chief medical officer asked ministers to withhold all UK clinical trial data from the EU if European countries continued to deny entry to British vaccine trial volunteers, the Observer can reveal.

Jonathan Van-Tam made the extraordinary proposal after months of uncertainty for the 19,000 volunteers who are effectively unable to travel to Europe to see family, work or go on holiday because they took part in trials of Novavax and Valneva.

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Long Covid in children and adolescents is less common than previously feared

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Review of 14 international studies suggests long Covid symptoms in children rarely last longer than 12 weeks

Children and adolescents who are infected with Covid-19 rarely have symptoms that last for longer than 12 weeks, according to a review of international research.

The review, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, suggests that long Covid in children and adolescents is less common than previously feared.

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Rules on GM farming and cars to be top of UK bonfire of EU laws

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Minister reveals plans to change laws inherited from EU, with rules on medical devices also in crosshairs

Rules on genetically modified farming, medical devices and vehicle standards will be top of a bonfire of laws inherited from the EU as the government seeks to change legislation automatically transferred to the UK after Brexit.

Thousands of laws and regulations are to be reviewed, modified or repealed under a new programme aimed at cementing the UK’s independence and “Brexit opportunities”, David Frost has announced.

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‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen

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In the UK, the majority of those now in hospital with Covid-19 are unvaccinated. Many face their last days with enormous regret, and their relatives are telling their stories to try to convince others like them

Matt Wynter, a 42-year-old music agent from Leek, Staffordshire, was working out in his local gym in mid-August when he saw, to his great surprise, that his best friend, Marcus Birks, was on the television. He jumped off the elliptical trainer and listened carefully.

The first thing he noticed was that Birks, who was also from Leek and a performer with the dance group Cappella, looked terrible. He was gasping for breath and his face was pale. “Marcus would never usually have gone on TV without having done his hair and had a shave,” Wynter says.

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Fully vaccinated people account for 1.2% of England’s Covid-19 deaths

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ONS figures show 51,281 Covid deaths between January and July, with 458 dying at least 21 days after second dose

People who were fully vaccinated accounted for just 1.2% of all deaths involving Covid-19 in England in the first seven months of this year.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), have been seized on as proof of the success of the vaccine programme.

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‘China’s Dr Fauci’: How Zhang Wenhong became the face of Beijing’s Covid battle

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Expert’s clever analogies and frank messages to public have won him respect – and millions of followers

Early last year, as Covid-19 began to disrupt livelihoods in Shanghai, local media struggled to persuade the public to stay at home. Then they turned to an infectious diseases expert, Dr Zhang Wenhong, who also heads up Shanghai’s expert panel on Covid-19.

“You’re bored to death at home, so the virus will be bored to death, too,” Zhang said in rapid-fire mandarin mixed with a distinctive Shanghainese accent. “Stay at home for two weeks … then we’ll be an inch closer to success.”

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‘A very cruel exit’: UK’s aid cuts risk rapid return of treatable diseases

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£200m project to eliminate avoidable blindness and disfigurement in Africa ends after funding is prematurely axed

A chandelier sparkling in the background, the grandeur of Downing Street gleaming behind him, Boris Johnson looks into the camera and speaks with solemnity. He is marking World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, he says, to raise awareness of these “terrible afflictions … which impose an immense burden of suffering in developing countries”.

Huge progress has been made, he says, in the fight against the diseases, not least as a result of British aid to some of the poorest parts of the world. But there is more – much more – to be done: more than a billion people are still at risk, he warns, and that is why the UK “fully supports” the World Health Organization’s big elimination push over the next decade.

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UK vaccine volunteers to help prepare for next virus at new Pandemic Institute

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The Liverpool site will work with other international centres to research the threat of emerging disruptive diseases

A new scientific institute which aims to prevent future pandemics may have been able to save thousands of lives by accelerating vaccine development had it existed before December 2019, its researchers believe.

Liverpool’s new Pandemic Institute will include a new human challenge facility, where volunteers will test new vaccines and treatments under controlled conditions.

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Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study

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US researchers say teenagers are more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid

Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim.

Their analysis of medical data suggests that boys aged 12 to 15, with no underlying medical conditions, are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid over a four-month period.

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Scientists’ egos are key barrier to progress, says Covid vaccine pioneer

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Prof Katalin Karikó of BioNTech says she endured decades of scepticism over her work on mRNA vaccines

Scientists would make swifter progress in solving the world’s problems if they learned to put their egos aside and collaborate better, according to the leading researcher behind the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine.

Prof Katalin Karikó, the senior vice-president for RNA protein replacement therapies at BioNTech in Germany, endured decades of scepticism over her work and was demoted and finally kicked out of her lab while developing the technology that made the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines possible.

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Pfizer accused of holding Brazil ‘to ransom’ over vaccine contract demands

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Leaked supply document reveals clauses to protect US pharma company from legal action in the event of serious side-effects

Pfizer has been accused of holding Brazil “to ransom” over demands to shield itself from possible vaccine side-effect lawsuits in its contract to supply the country with 100m Covid jabs.

In its $1bn (£700m) deal with Pfizer Export BV, signed in March, despite its prior complaints, the Brazilian government agreed that “a liability waiver be signed for any possible side-effects of the vaccine, exempting Pfizer from any civil liability for serious side-effects arising from the use of the vaccine, indefinitely”.

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German Covid super-spreader event driven by poor ventilation, study finds

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Low-grade ventilation system at indoor carnival in Gangelt leading factor in outbreak among partygoers

Airborne viruses recycled through a low-grade ventilation system likely created Germany’s first super-spreader event of the Covid-19 pandemic, a CSI-style analysis of a carnival celebration has found.

The event at the town hall of Gangelt, a municipality on the border with the Netherlands, was labelled “Germany’s Wuhan” after it was found to be the driver of a major outbreak in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia last year.

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Israel: one-year-old conjoined twin girls see each other for the first time after surgery – video

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One-year-old twin girls have looked at each other for the first time after a complex surgery to separate them at Soroka medical centre in Beersheba, Israel. Dozens of experts from Israel and abroad were involved in the preparation and 12-hour procedure. 

The team used 3D- and virtual-reality models to map the complex operation. This enabled simulations and practice to be undertaken before the actual procedure.

Soroka's chief paediatric neurosurgeon, Mickey Gideon, said: 'We have done the reconstruction of the brain membrane, a reconstruction of the skull and now the plastic surgeons continue the surgery for the sealing of the skin'

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