Up to 100 million people died in 1918-19 in the world’s deadliest pandemic. What can we learn?
Spanish flu is estimated to have killed between 50 million and 100 million people when it swept the globe in 1918-19 – more than double the number killed in the first world war. Two-thirds of its victims died in a three-month period and most were aged 18-49. So what lessons has the world’s deadliest pandemic taught us?
Continue reading...US strengthens travel advice, raising Iran and Italy to a level three, advising people to ‘avoid nonessential travel’. Follow live news
US confirms first death from the coronavirus in King County in Washington state.
BREAKING: First death from Coronavirus in Washington State - awaiting details on patient said to be from King County - @GovInslee statement @KIRORadio #973FM #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/TjlmhRIeBB
Reuters reports that the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Italy has climbed above 1,000, according to an official who said the number of deaths had surged to 29.
Continue reading...The truth about the protective value of face masks and how easy it is to catch Covid-19
Many individuals who get coronavirus will experience nothing worse than seasonal flu symptoms, but the overall profile of the disease, including its mortality rate, looks more serious. At the start of an outbreak the apparent mortality rate can be an overestimate if a lot of mild cases are being missed. But this week, a WHO expert suggested that this has not been the case with Covid-19. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and the country’s response, said the evidence did not suggest that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If borne out by further testing, this could mean that current estimates of a roughly 1% fatality rate are accurate. This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.
Continue reading...As cases of people infected with the coronavirus or Covid-19 grow rapidly in Italy, Iran and South Korea, the rest of the world is bracing for a pandemic
Continue reading...Lone Kabul laboratory preparing to treat patients in the midst of political turmoil and tentative peace talks, as border with Iran closed
Preparations for an outbreak of coronavirus were underway in Afghanistan as the country confirmed its first case in the western province of Herat, which borders Iran.
Seven more suspected cases have been identified in Herat, and three cases in the nearby provinces of Farah and Ghor.
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia bans religious tourists from entering country as WHO says virus now spreading faster outside China than in it. Follow latest news
Fiji has extended its travel ban due to coronavirus fears. Travellers who have been in Italy, Iran and the South Korean cities of Daegu and Cheongdo will not be permitted to enter Fiji. Visitors who had been in mainland China in the last 14 days have also been forbidden entry into the Pacific nation.
There are no suspected or confirmed cases of coronavirus in Fiji, but Pacific nations are fearful of how their health systems will cope were the virus to reach their shores.
Ian Thorpe, the Australian Olympic swimming legend, says athletes must consider their own health before attending the Tokyo Games this year.
Thorpe, whose five Olympic golds make him the most successful Australian Olympian all time, spoke out as concerns mounted about whether the Games in July and August will go ahead because of the coronavirus outbreak.
I think the decision should come down to each individual athlete. But whether or not they want to compete, that they should take their health into consideration first.
Related: Athletes must consider their own health before travelling to Olympics, says Ian Thorpe
Continue reading...Current diagnostic method for Barrett’s oesophagus relies on invasive and costly endoscopy
An electronic device that “sniffs” breath may offer a new way to identify people with a condition that can lead to cancer of the oesophagus, researchers have revealed.
Recent figures suggest there are about 9,000 new cases of oesophageal cancer, or cancer of the food pipe, every year in the UK.
Continue reading...President greets workers in Beijing as WHO chief warns cases could be ‘tip of iceberg’
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has made his first public appearance in weeks, as some people began to return to work following the lunar new year holiday, which was extended as authorities grappled with the coronavirus outbreak.
Xi, who has been absent from public view as the crisis worsened, visited a neighbourhood in Beijing’s Chaoyang district. The president had his temperature taken and greeted residents and workers, according to a brief video posted by the state broadcaster CCTV.
Continue reading...Country could have contained spread of disease if only it had learned lessons from Sars outbreak
The death of the whistleblower Chinese doctor Li Wenliang has aroused strong emotions across China. Social media is awash with posts mourning the death of a martyr who tried to raise alarm over the coronavirus but was taken into a police station instead for “spreading false rumours” and “disrupting social order”.
Grief quickly turned into angry demands for free speech. The trending topic “we want freedom of speech”, which attracted millions of views, and links to Do You Hear the People Sing, a song popularised in recent Hong Kong protests, were quickly censored by police.
Continue reading...News of Kaletra being tested as a possible treatment for the disease sparks panic buying
A drug used to treat people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is being trialled in patients in China as a possible therapy against the coronavirus.
News that HIV drugs are being deployed in hospitals, however, has led to panic buying on the black market by people who fear they are ill or are going to get sick. They have been obtaining the drug, Kaletra, from generics companies in India and even from people with HIV in China willing to sell or donate their own stocks.
Continue reading...Failure to report mild symptoms combined with highly contagious nature of disease raises fears existing figures are ‘tip of the iceberg’
Global health experts have warned that “hidden” infections make containment of the coronavirus unlikely and raised fears that the rapidly rising caseload of 25,000 people could be the “tip of the iceberg”.
“Hidden” cases – where people with mild symptoms do not seek medical help and so remain untested and unrecorded – combined with the highly contagious nature of the disease mean there could be “vastly more cases” than previously thought, according to Tom Frieden, a former director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Continue reading...The global body is accused of failing to act fast to halt epidemic but the true cost of doing politics with Beijing is still unknown
On social media this week the insults were flying thick and fast, some tinged with racism, but all with a common theme: how the World Health Organization, and its head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was effectively doing the bidding of the Chinese government in the midst of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
It is a charge that has also been expressed in less offensive terms elsewhere in columns and articles, some of which have focused on whether, in praising China’s response to the deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak during a visit to Beijing, Tedros allowed himself to become complicit in China’s flawed handling of the outbreak in its early days?
Continue reading...The WHO has praised country’s response, but heavy-handed approach could make things worse
When the World Health Organization declared the 2019nCoV coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, it effusively praised China’s response to the outbreak. The WHO issued a statement welcoming the government’s “commitment to transparency”, and the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted: “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”
The WHO is ignoring Chinese government suppression of human rights regarding the outbreak, including severe restrictions on freedom of expression. In turn, Chinese state media are citing the WHO to defend its policies and try to silence criticism of its response to the outbreak, which has included rights violations that could make the situation worse.
Continue reading...What are the symptoms caused by the virus from Wuhan in China, how is it transmitted from one person to another, and at what point should you see a doctor?
It is a novel coronavirus – that is to say, a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. Many of those infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city, which also sold live and newly slaughtered animals. New and troubling viruses usually originate in animal hosts. Ebola and flu are examples.
Continue reading...What are the symptoms, how is it transmitted from one person to another, and how is the virus from Wuhan in China related to Sars?
It is a novel coronavirus – that is to say, a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. Many of those infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city, which also sold live and newly slaughtered animals. New and troubling viruses usually originate in animal hosts. Ebola and flu are examples.
Continue reading...After preventing travel from Wuhan, China has locked down several more cities as it attempts to contain the deadly coronavirus. Footage online reveals the quarantine measures the country is taking to prevent the spread
Study of nearly 3,000 women suggests body may ‘choose’ not to invest in ovulation
Women who have sex more often are less likely to have an early menopause, according to research that raises the intriguing possibility that lifestyle factors could play a more significant role than previously thought in determining when the menopause occurs.
The study, based on data collected from nearly 3,000 women who were followed for 10 years, found that those who reported engaging in sexual activity weekly were 28% less likely to have experienced menopause at any given age than women who engaged in sexual activity less than monthly.
Continue reading...Week-long storage boosts time organs are usable and distances over which they can be moved
Human livers from organ donors can now be preserved for a week, researchers have revealed, a dramatic improvement on previous techniques, which could only keep the organs usable for a matter of hours.
The technology could boost the number of livers available for transplantation and offer new approaches to treating diseases such as liver cancer.
Continue reading...China’s viral pneumonia outbreak may have jumped species barrier, raising fears of pandemic
The finding that the outbreak of viral pneumonia in China that has struck 59 people may be caused by a coronavirus, the family of viruses behind Sars, which spread to 37 countries in 2003, causing global panic and killing more than 750 people, means that health authorities will be watching closely.
China says the illness is not Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), nor Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome), both of which are caused by coronaviruses, and so far it appears milder than both. Unlike Sars, it does not appear to spread easily between humans and unlike Mers, which has a mortality rate of about 35%, nobody has died.
Continue reading...More than a million cases were reported in south-east Asia last year with poorer households most at risk
The global toll of dengue fever is becoming well known, with rising temperatures contributing to severe outbreaks that made 2019 the worst year on record for the disease.
In 1970 only nine countries faced severe dengue outbreaks. But the disease, which is spread by mosquitoes that can only survive in warm temperatures, is now seen in more than 100 countries. There are thought to be 390m infections each year
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