Pandemic News and Research

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A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. During a pandemic, transmission can be anticipated in the workplace, not only from patient to workers in health care settings, but also among co-workers in general work settings. A pandemic would cause high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts could range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

COVID-19 significantly raises stroke risk

Researchers conducted a metaumbrella review of 34 systematic reviews and 70 studies, uncovering a significant link between COVID-19 severity and increased stroke risk. The review emphasizes the need for further investigation into underlying mechanisms and potential biases.

9 Oct 2024

PANPOC technology aims to revolutionize virus detection

PANPOC is one of the two technologies that PAIR aims to deliver and implement by the end of this five-year project.

8 Oct 2024

New EU project aims to enhance pandemic preparedness

Covid-19 came like a bolt from the blue. The health, social and economic repercussions of this pandemic event have been considerable and, four years on, we are still suffering from them.

8 Oct 2024

New insights into family adaptation in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic

A new study by the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) analyzing the resilience of Singaporean families during the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered significant findings that highlight how most families with young children successfully adapted to the challenges brought by the global crisis.

8 Oct 2024

Brainstem inflammation may explain long Covid symptoms

Damage to the brainstem – the brain's 'control center' – is behind long-lasting physical and psychiatric effects of severe Covid-19 infection, a study suggests.

8 Oct 2024

One-dose HPV vaccination could eliminate cervical cancer in Canada

Canadian vaccination programs could switch to a 1-dose gender-neutral human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination approach and eliminate cervical cancer, suggests new modeling in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.240787.

7 Oct 2024

Antigenic mapping sheds light on SARS-CoV-2 immunity differences

A person's immune response to variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, depends on their previous exposure - and differences in the focus of immune responses will help scientists understand how to optimise vaccines in the future to provide broad protection.

7 Oct 2024

Young Australians face stagnating life expectancy trends

Australians under 50 are experiencing stagnating life expectancy while older cohorts, especially men, are living longer, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU).

7 Oct 2024

FDA’s promised rules on pulse oximeters unlikely to end decades of racial bias

The patient was in his 60s, an African American man with emphysema. The oximeter placed on his fingertip registered well above the 88% blood oxygen saturation level that signals an urgent risk of organ failure and death.

7 Oct 2024

COVID-19 increases chronic fatigue risk

Study reveals that COVID-19 significantly increases the risk of chronic fatigue syndrome, with specific populations, such as older adults, Asians, and non-hospitalized patients, at higher risk.

7 Oct 2024

Pasteurization effectively reduces H5N1 virus in milk but further testing is essential

Research explores the resilience of the H5N1 influenza virus in milk under pasteurization conditions, showing effective viral inactivation at standard temperatures but highlighting the need for further real-world testing.

6 Oct 2024

Jefferson Lab team explores proton therapy as a safer cancer treatment

Radiation therapy techniques have been used for more than a century to treat cancers. Physicists in the Radiation Detector and Imaging group and associated with the Biomedical Research & Innovation Center (BRIC) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have been for several years pursuing radiation therapy technology improvements in collaboration with the Hampton University Proton Cancer Institute (HUPCI).

4 Oct 2024

Thousands could have been saved during the pandemic with expanded use of convalescent plasma

A new study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimates that thousands of lives could have been saved during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic if convalescent plasma had been used more broadly, particularly in outpatients at high risk for severe disease and in hospitalized patients during their first few days of admission.

4 Oct 2024

Trump leads, and his party follows, on vaccine skepticism

More than four years ago, former President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated the development and rollout of the covid-19 vaccine.

4 Oct 2024

Cancer Research UK backs study to develop preventive ovarian cancer vaccine

In this study, the Cancer Research UK-funded scientists will establish the targets for the vaccine. They will find out which proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells are most strongly recognized by the immune system and how effectively the vaccine kills mini-models of ovarian cancer called organoids.

4 Oct 2024

Mild COVID-19 disrupts brain connectivity and reduces memory function in adolescents and young adults

Study reveals localized brain changes in adolescents and young adults post-COVID, including reduced hippocampal volume and disrupted connectivity, correlating with impaired working memory. These findings highlight the importance of understanding long-term cognitive effects of mild COVID-19.

3 Oct 2024

Houston Methodist researchers join national consortium to develop herpesvirus vaccine

Houston Methodist researchers will be part of a national consortium funded by an up to $49 million award from the U.S. Government's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop a vaccine against two of the most common and destructive strains of herpesviruses that latently infect a majority of Americans and can lead to acute infections, multiple forms of cancer, autoimmune disease and birth defects.

3 Oct 2024