Category Archives: Infectious Diseases

Songs, tears and reunions: New Zealand welcomes back visitors as border reopens after two years

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Vaccinated people from about 60 visa-waiver countries now able to enter as part of pandemic reopening plan

Māori songs, tearful embraces and a beloved New Zealand chocolate bar awaited international visitors arriving in New Zealand on Monday – the first foreign guests, other than Australians, to set foot in Aotearoa in more than two years.

Since March 2020, the arrival terminals at New Zealand’s international airports have been desolate as the country swiftly closed the border to prevent the arrival of Covid-19.

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Boris Johnson’s defence on Covid risk to care homes hit by new revelation

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Prime minister had broached issue of asymptomatic transmission publicly with advisers long before testing rules were introduced

Boris Johnson’s claim that a lack of knowledge about the asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 put care homes at risk has been further undermined after it emerged he openly discussed the potential scale of symptom-free transmission.

The prime minister has already been accused of misleading parliament over the claim. He made it last week after the high court ruled that the government had acted unlawfully in ordering the discharge of patients to care homes without testing in the spring of 2020. Johnson told the House of Commons: “What we didn’t know in particular was that Covid could be transmitted asymptomatically.”

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Number of UK children suffering from hepatitis rises to 145

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Concerns rise about surge as scientists say lack of exposure to viruses during Covid restrictions could be factor

The number of children in the UK suffering from severe hepatitis has risen to 145 as concerns mount about the mysterious surge in cases.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced an increase of 34 cases but said most children have recovered and no children have died. There has been no increase from the 10 children who have required a liver transplant, reported on Monday.

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More than half of Americans have had Covid, including three of four children

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A CDC report showed a striking increase in those with coronavirus antibodies between December and February

More than half of Americans show signs of a previous Covid-19 infection, including three out of every four children, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come after researchers examined blood samples from more than 200,000 Americans and looked for virus-fighting antibodies made from infections, not vaccines. They found that signs of past infection rose dramatically between December and February, when the more contagious Omicron variant surged through the US.

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Only 29% of UK Covid hospital patients recover within a year

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Of the 750,000 hospitalised, many still report fatigue, muscle pain, insomnia and breathlessness, with women worst affected

Fewer than one in three people who have been hospitalised with Covid-19 have fully recovered a year after they succumbed to infection.

That is the shock finding of a survey into the impact of long Covid in the UK. The team of scientists and doctors at Leicester University also found that women had poorer recovery rates than men after hospitalisation, while obesity was also likely to hinder a person’s prospects of health improvements.

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Pigs can pass deadly superbugs to people, study reveals

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Research into C difficile found antibiotic resistance is growing as a result of overuse on farm stock

Scientists have uncovered evidence that dangerous versions of superbugs can spread from pigs to humans. The discovery underlines fears that intensive use of antibiotics on farms is leading to the spread of microbes resistant to them.

The discovery of the link has been made by Semeh Bejaoui and Dorte Frees of Copenhagen University and Soren Persson at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute and focuses on the superbug Clostridioides difficile, which is considered one of the world’s major antibiotic resistance threats.

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Shanghai further tightens Covid restrictions after weeks of strict lockdown

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China vows to eradicate virus, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, amid frustration among residents

Authorities in Shanghai have further tightened restrictions on the movement of residents in some districts and warned its 25 million inhabitants that strict measures would continue until Covid-19 was eradicated, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

After three weeks of stringent lockdown that has fuelled discontent in China’s largest metropolis, some districts were told that restrictions would be tightened even when they met the criteria for people to be allowed to leave their homes.

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Australia’s Covid death toll in 2022 more than double that of previous two years

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Federal health data shows 4,547 people have died of Covid-19 this year to date, compared with 2,239 over 2020 and 2021

The number of deaths from Covid-19 in Australia this year to date has reached more than double the deaths from 2020 and 2021 combined.

According to federal health department data as of 18 April, 6,786 people have died of Covid-19 in Australia since the beginning of the pandemic. Of these deaths, 4,547 occurred in 2022 – more than double the 2,239 deaths recorded over the first two years of the pandemic.

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Covid-19: India accused of trying to delay WHO revision of death toll

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According to WHO analysis, figure for country is more than 4 million and not official tally of 520,000

India has been accused of attempting to delay an effort by the World Health Organization to revise the global death toll from Covid-19 after its calculations suggested that the country had undercounted its dead by an estimated 3.5 million.

India’s official number of deaths from Covid is 520,000. But according to in-depth analysis and investigations into the data by WHO, the total is more than 4 million, which would be by far the highest country death toll in the world.

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Lessons from Covid can start a health revolution, says lab chief

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Director of network that processed millions of tests says smart diagnostics could tackle other major diseases

Two years of mass Covid testing have paved the way for a revolution in how we diagnose other diseases, the founding director of the Lighthouse labs network has said.

In his first interview since the pandemic began, Prof Chris Molloy said that people’s familiarity with using swabs for Covid tests meant that they could also discover and monitor their risk of other conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

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Shanghai residents forced from homes clash with police over Covid policy

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Scuffles follow complaints of food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing people into quarantine

Videos posted on social media have showed residents of Shanghai scuffling with hazmat-suited police who were ordering them to surrender their homes to Covid-19 patients, providing a rare glimpse into rising discontent in the megacity over China’s inflexible virus response.

Shanghai, a city of 25 million and China’s economic engine room, has become the heart of the country’s biggest outbreak since the peak of the first virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago, rattling the country’s adherence to a strict zero-Covid policy.

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Valneva approved to be UK’s sixth Covid vaccine

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Medicines regulator says it is first in world to approve Valneva product

A Covid-19 vaccine developed by the French pharmaceutical company Valneva has been given regulatory approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, bringing the total number of jabs approved for use in the UK to six.

As the Covid pandemic swept the world, scientists began developing vaccines against it, with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab being the first in the UK to be authorised for emergency use by the MHRA in 2020. Since then the MHRA has approved the Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax vaccines, although, according to NHS England, Janssen and Novavax are not currently available.

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iPhone maker Pegatron halts Shanghai production due to Covid lockdown

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Operations stopped in Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan as global supply chains feel pinch of Beijing's zero-Covid measures

Key iPhone maker Pegatron has halted operations at two subsidiaries in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan, as global supply chains feel the pinch of Beijing’s strict zero-Covid measures.

The business hub of Shanghai has become the heart of China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus surfaced more than two years ago.

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Fauci says protocols to protect Biden ‘pretty strong’ amid rash of Covid cases

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‘It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk,’ says president’s chief medical adviser after spate of positive tests in DC

A rash of coronavirus infections among elites in Washington that came close to Joe Biden shows a new reality facing Americans including the president, his chief medical adviser said: that life will involve daily decisions about individual risk from Covid.

“It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk they’re going to take,” Dr Anthony Fauci told ABC’s This Week, adding that protocols protecting the president were “pretty strong”.

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Thousands of ventilators pulled as electrical faults put UK patients’ lives at risk

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Electrical problem triggers global safety alert on 2,000 Philips machines

Two thousand ventilators being used in UK hospitals are at risk of suddenly shutting down due to electrical faults that have led to a global safety alert.

Hospitals have been ordered to source replacement ventilators after Philips Respironics said its breathing support devices could suddenly stop working, in some cases without activating a warning alarm.

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Omicron variant does cause different symptoms from Delta, study finds

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Data from UK’s Zoe Covid study confirms reports Omicron patients recover more quickly and are less likely to lose sense of smell or taste

People who have the Omicron Covid variant tend to have symptoms for a shorter period, a lower risk of being admitted to hospital and a different set of symptoms from those who have Delta, research has suggested.

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant shot to dominance towards the end of last year, it emerged that, while it is better at dodging the body’s immune responses than Delta, it also produces less severe disease.

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Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who led New Zealand’s pandemic response, resigns

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Softly-spoken public servant who became a household name says the role had been challenging and complex

The understated doctor who became an unexpected star of New Zealand’s pandemic has resigned after two years leading the country’s Covid response.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health announced his resignation on Wednesday, and said that it had been “a huge privilege”.

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Covid cases rise in Shanghai as millions remain in lockdown

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Daily case numbers are some of the largest seen in China since the virus was first detected in Wuhan

Covid-19 cases in China’s largest city of Shanghai have risen again as millions remain isolated at home under a sweeping lockdown.

Health officials on Sunday reported 438 confirmed cases detected over the previous 24 hours, along with 7,788 asymptomatic cases. Both figures were up slightly from the day before.

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Covid lockdown extended in Shanghai as outbreaks put economy on the skids

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China’s largest city and financial powerhouse is struggling to cope with the country’s worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic in Wuhan

Shanghai has been plunged into an extended lockdown and some residents face another 10 days of isolation in their homes as China’s strict zero-Covid policy threatens to derail the country’s economy.

The eastern half of China’s biggest city had been due to emerge on Friday from a four-day lockdown aimed at crushing a persistent outbreak of the Omicron variant, but the extension was announced late on Thursday night.

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‘Africa must be self-sufficient’: John Nkengasong on learning the deadly lessons of pandemics

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The outgoing director of Africa Centres for Disease Control has seen Ebola, Aids and now Covid – and warns complacency is dangerous

The past five years have been “like going from one fire to the next, with barely any time to catch your breath”, says John Nkengasong, the outgoing head of the body charged with responding to health emergencies in Africa.

A relentless term as the first director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) saw Nkengasong manage the response to Ebola and Lassa fever outbreaks. But nothing compared to the formidable test brought by Covid-19.

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