Category Archives: Medical research

Coronavirus live news: millions more wake up to tier 4 in England

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Follow all the latest on the coronavirus pandemic across the world

The new variant of the coronavirus circulating in Britain has been detected in Sweden after a traveller from Britain fell ill on arrival and tested positive for it, the Swedish health agency said on Saturday.

A health agency official, Sara Byfors, told a news conference that the traveller, who was not identified, had kept isolated after arrival to Sweden and that no further positive cases had so far been detected.

Jordan has arrested a journalist over an article alleging that the coronavirus vaccine had arrived in the kingdom and that officials had received the jab, a judicial source said on Saturday.

“The state security court prosecutor ordered the arrest Thursday of journalist Jamal Haddad, editor of news website Al-Wakaai, for writing that government officials had been vaccinated against the coronavirus,” the source said.

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Ten reasons why we got Covid-19 vaccines so quickly without ‘cutting corners’ | Adam Finn

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The speedy rollout is thanks to a combination of foresight, hard work and lucky breaks

The speed at which effective Covid-19 vaccines have come through to authorisation has caused surprise. Compared with previous vaccines, the process has been very fast and so, naturally, people are asking how can it have happened without some kind of compromise on standards and care. Explaining it all as simply a result of the wonders of the latest scientific advances seems vague. So how has it actually come about? In reality, there are at least 10 reasons: some are about good planning, some good science and some just good luck.

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UK scientists trial drug to prevent infection that leads to Covid

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Exclusive: Antibody therapy could confer instant immunity to Covid-19 on at-risk groups

British scientists are trialling a new drug that could prevent someone who has been exposed to coronavirus from going on to develop the disease Covid-19, which experts say could save many lives.

The antibody therapy would confer instant immunity against the disease and could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients and care home residents to help contain outbreaks.

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South African Covid-19 variant may be ‘more effective at spreading’

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Research still to confirm threat posed but variant does not appear to provoke more serious symptoms

The South African variant of Covid-19, two cases of which have now been detected in the UK, is likely to be more transmissible, may hit young people harder, and may be slightly more resistant to vaccines, scientists in South Africa believe.

However, research is still continuing to confirm the threat posed by the variant, which does not appear to provoke more serious symptoms or require different treatment.

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Fears UK aid cuts could undermine research on deadliest diseases

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Exclusive: experts sign letter warning against slashing spending on public-private programmes

Experts fear a push to cut the UK’s aid budget will slash spending on global health research, handicapping international public-private programmes that have helped combat the world’s deadliest diseases over the last decade.

In a letter addressed to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, last week, prominent parliamentarians sought reassurance that the planned cuts would not lead to “dramatic reductions” in investment for devastating diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, Aids and a clutch of neglected tropical diseases.

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What do we know about the two new Covid-19 variants in the UK?

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One appears to have arisen in Kent, the other brought in from South Africa. Both are highly transmissible

Two new variants of Covid-19 have been identified as of concern in the UK, both said to be more transmissible than the previously dominant version. Here’s what we know so far.

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Scorned scientist now vindicated in her work on how to treat stroke

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Anne Abbott challenged medical establishment and faced ‘shocking’ rebuffs

Anne Abbott is a scientist on a mission. She believes large numbers of debilitating strokes can be prevented without surgical interventions. Lifestyle changes and medication alone can make massive improvements to people at risk from the thickening of their arteries.

It is not an attitude that has endeared her to the medical establishment, however. For years, it has attempted to block her work while instead pressing for increasing use of carotid surgery and stents, she told the Observer last week.

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A Christmas pandemic like no other? They thought that in 1918

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The post-first world war flu outbreak also came in waves and led to school closures and face-mask rows

This is not the first time that a pandemic has gripped the holiday season. In December 1918, preparations for the first Christmas without war in four years took place in the midst of the worst pandemic since the Black Death.

The 1918-19 influenza, like Covid-19, came in waves. The deadliest began in autumn, peaked in late November and continued through the first weeks of December. It struck hundreds of millions and killed tens of millions worldwide.

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Covid is a chance to build a world where everyone has access to basic vaccines | David Miliband and Anuradha Gupta

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Preventable diseases still plague those missing out on vaccines. Efforts to halt coronavirus could help crack this issue

The massive public, private and foundation investments in a coronavirus vaccine are producing results at a record pace. And countries are reacting accordingly. A recent global assessment of purchasing agreements for Covid-19 vaccines reveals that high-income countries, as well as a few middle-income countries with high manufacturing capacity, have already bought enough doses for their populations.

But delivery of the vaccine needs a new level of focus. This is especially the case for populations in poor and war-torn countries, where the health system is weak or nonexistent. Even before the pandemic, approximately 20 million infants a year, often some of the most vulnerable in the world, were missing out on basic vaccines. For example, there are estimated to be more than 10.6 million children in the world’s poorest countries who in 2019 did not receive even a first dose of a diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine (DPT).

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UK Covid live: tier 3 rules extended across southern England as secondary schools face staggered January return

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Latest updates: ‘vast majority’ of areas currently in tier 3 will remain there; secondary school pupils’ return to class in England will be staggered

The Department of Health has released a written ministerial statement giving the reasons for the decisions taken today about why areas in England are staying in, or moving from, particular tiers. It’s here - although the version up at the moment only covers the north-west, the north-east and London.

The government is to provide interim cover for EU holiday healthcare costs for people who require routine hospital treatment such as dialysis and chemotherapy in the event there is no Brexit deal to replace the current European Health Care Insurance Scheme (EHIC).

In a written ministerial statement Edward Argar, a health minister, said:

This government will introduce the scheme with the intention that it is used by individuals who are certain to require treatment while abroad, such as regular dialysis, oxygen therapy or certain types of chemotherapy. The government recognises that these ongoing, routine treatment costs can be expensive, and makes travelling abroad extremely challenging for many people.

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British American Tobacco wins approval to test Covid vaccine on humans

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Treatment grown on tobacco plants gets US backing for clinical study

British American Tobacco has moved a step closer to producing a vaccine for coronavirus using tobacco plants, as it won approval in the US to begin testing on humans.

The company behind cigarette brands including Lucky Strike, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges said the US Food & Drug Administration had given it clearance to begin a clinical study with adult volunteers.

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The great project: how Covid changed science for ever

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The emergence of a novel coronavirus prompted a wave of global collaboration that has led to vaccines, treatments and the promise of new discoveries

For scientists, 5 January was a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus. That day, a team led by Prof Yong-Zhen Zhang at Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced the genetic code of the virus behind Wuhan’s month-long pneumonia outbreak. The process took about 40 hours. Having analysed the code, Zhang reported back to the Ministry of Health. The pathogen was a novel coronavirus similar to Sars, the deadly virus that sparked an epidemic in 2003. People should take precautions, he warned.

The Chinese government had imposed an embargo on information about the outbreak and Zhang and his co-workers were under pressure not to publish the code. The blackout couldn’t hold. On 8 January, news broke about the nature of the pathogen and was confirmed a day later by Chinese authorities. To sit on the code now seemed ridiculous.

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‘It made Boris seem like a normal person’: how did Johnson’s Covid change him?

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The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?

It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.

Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?

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Coronavirus: key moments – timeline

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From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19 – here are the points where momentum shifted

From December 2019, when an unknown virus was found in China, to the release of vaccines for Covid-19, it has been an extraordinary year. Here’s how the momentum shifted

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‘Autoantibodies’ may be driving severe Covid cases, study shows

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Scientists find aberrant immune system in patients with virus could also be cause of ‘long Covid’

Dramatic levels of “friendly fire” from the immune system may drive severe Covid-19 disease and leave patients with “long Covid” – when medical problems persist for a significant time after the virus has been beaten – scientists have said.

Researchers at Yale University found that Covid-19 patients had large numbers of misguided antibodies in their blood that targeted the organs, tissues and the immune system itself, rather than fighting off the invading virus.

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Has a year of living with Covid-19 rewired our brains?

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The pandemic is expected to precipitate a mental health crisis, but perhaps also a chance to approach life with new clarity

When the bubonic plague spread through England in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton fled Cambridge where he was studying for the safety of his family home in Lincolnshire. The Newtons did not live in a cramped apartment; they enjoyed a large garden with many fruit trees. In these uncertain times, out of step with ordinary life, his mind roamed free of routines and social distractions. And it was in this context that a single apple falling from a tree struck him as more intriguing than any of the apples he had previously seen fall. Gravity was a gift of the plague. So, how is this pandemic going for you?

In different ways, this is likely a question we are all asking ourselves. Whether you have experienced illness, relocated, lost a loved one or a job, got a kitten or got divorced, eaten more or exercised more, spent longer showering each morning or reached every day for the same clothes, it is an inescapable truth that the pandemic alters us all. But how? And when will we have answers to these questions – because surely there will be a time when we can scan our personal balance sheets and see in the credit column something more than grey hairs, a thicker waist and a kitten? (Actually, the kitten is pretty rewarding.) What might be the psychological impact of living through a pandemic? Will it change us for ever?

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Origin story: what do we know now about where coronavirus came from?

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When Chinese scientists alerted colleagues to a new virus last December, suspicion fell on a Wuhan market. What have health officials learned since then?

Maria van Kerkhove was staying with her sister in the US for the Christmas holidays, but checking her emails. As always. Every day there are signals of potential trouble, said the World Health Organization virologist who was to become a household name and face within weeks.

“There’s always something that happens at Christmas time. There’s always some alert, or a signal of a suspected case. The last several years it’s been Mers [Middle East respiratory syndrome] – a suspect case travelling to Malaysia or Indonesia or Korea or somewhere in Asia from the Middle East. So there’s always some kind of signal. There’s always something that happens,” she said.

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‘Covid-19 has an odour, and the dogs are detecting it’: meet the canine super-squad sniffing out the virus

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They’re loyal, diligent – and have unbeatable noses. Could dogs play a key part in the fight against the pandemic?

A single-storey building in a lonely rural business park, a few miles from Milton Keynes on a grey autumn day. It looks like a location for a bleak thriller: where a kidnap victim is held, perhaps, or the scene of a final shootout. Inside, though, something kind of cool is happening.

In a brightly lit room, four inverted metal cups have been placed on the red carpet, each containing a small glass jar. One of these contains a smell: a “training odour”. Into the room bursts Billy, followed by Jess. Billy is a labrador, and Jess his human trainer. Billy bounces about the place, clearly super excited. He sniffs at everything – furniture, people, the cups – wagging ferociously. When he sniffs at the cup that contains the smell, another trainer, Jayde, indicates success with a clicking noise. Billy is rewarded with his favourite toy, a well-chewed rubber ball, and a chorus of “good boy”.

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Dogs and owners may share resemblance in diabetes risk

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Research shows people who have a dog with type 2 diabetes are 38% more at risk of having disease themselves

It’s said that dogs resemble their owners, but the similarities may also extend to their risk of diabetes, research suggests. The same cannot be said of cat owners and their companions, however.

Previous studies had hinted that overweight owners tend to have porkier pets, possibly because of shared health behaviours such as overeating or not taking regular exercise. To investigate whether this extended to a shared risk of type 2 diabetes, Beatrice Kennedy, of Uppsala University in Sweden, and colleagues turned to insurance data from Sweden’s largest pet insurance company, using owners’ 10-digit national identification numbers to pull their anonymised health records.

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Chinese Covid-19 vaccine has 86% efficacy, UAE says

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First results released from trial of Sinopharm shot involving 31,000 people

The United Arab Emirates said a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms has 86% efficacy, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the performance of the shot.

The announcement brought yet another contender into the worldwide race for a vaccine to end the pandemic, a scientific effort in which China and Russia are competing with western firms to develop an effective inoculation.

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