New data from phase 3 trials of monoclonal antibodies for patients with recent COVID-19 diagnoses, or at high risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection, could move the needle on clinician acceptance of the treatments, experts say. Two monoclonal antibody formulations, Eli Lilly’s bamlanivimab and Regeneron’s cocktail of two antibodies, casirivimab and imdevimab, received emergency use authorizations from the US Food and Drug Administration in November to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 in outpatients. But current recommendations from the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s COVID-19 treatment and guideline panel, based on data from a phase 2 trial of bamlanivimab, suggest against the routine use of the drug. Data from phase 3 trials, for which the companies announced topline results in press releases last week, could result in a revision of the IDSA guidelines when published more formally and the committee convenes on the (more…)

The day has finally come. You’ve received the second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine currently on the Western market — Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca. Does that mean you’re free to go about life as you did before the pandemic once immunity kicks in? Sorry, there is no immunity passport yet, experts told CNN. There are still safety precautions you need to follow in order to keep you, your loved ones and everyone else safe and protected from the deadly coronavirus. Read on for answers from the experts on top questions such as when can you stop wearing a mask, eat inside a restaurant, travel, go to sporting events and concerts, and freely visit friends and family. Can I please stop wearing a face mask? Let’s “face” it: The answer is no. Try to think of a face mask as your (more…)

With the COVID-19 vaccination programme being rolled out across the country Dr Sheeba Irshad, senior clinical lecturer, breast cancer medical oncologist and clinical deputy head of the Breast Cancer Now Research Unit at Kings College London, answers some common questions about the current vaccines and if they are safe and effective for people with breast cancer. Is the coronavirus vaccine safe if I’m having breast cancer treatment? For most people, it’s much safer to have the vaccine than not to have it and risk catching coronavirus. Some vaccines use a ‘live’ but weakened virus to give an immune response, which may be a risk to people with weaker immune systems. However, that’s not the case for the three available Covid-19 vaccines, which are considered safe for people having treatments that can weaken the immune system, such as chemotherapy. You should (more…)

We all want this pandemic to end. By February 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic caused 100 million confirmed infections and 2.2 million deaths worldwide. In the United States, 26 million people have been infected with COVID-19 and nearly 500,000 people have died. This winter, 3,300 U.S. lives were lost every day to a surge of COVID-19 infections. These striking numbers underestimate the actual spread of the virus because only people who have been tested are counted. Widespread use of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines will end the pandemic when 70% to 85% of people are vaccinated, experts believe. The fact that we have safe and highly protective vaccines should lead us all to want to be vaccinated. UCI Health infectious disease experts provide answers to the following questions people have asked about the vaccines. Why Vaccinate? Which Vaccine? What’s in the (more…)

After more than two decades, women between ages 20 and 39 are seeing a slight increase in the rates of breast cancer mortality. The two decade-plus trend of declining death rates from breast cancer is at an end for women under age 40, prompting experts to call for greater awareness of and more research into the reasons behind this change. From 1989 to 2017, statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics showed mortality rates from breast cancer among women of all ages declined steeply by 40 percent, largely due to an increase in screening mammography use. But, now, a retrospective analysis, published Feb. 9 in Radiology, shows a slight death-rate increase – 0.5 percent annually – in women ages 20 to 39 between 2010 and 2017. “It’s clear that mortality rates in women under 40 are no longer decreasing,” (more…)

More people with fever and body aches are turning to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to ease symptoms, but the drugs have come under new scrutiny as investigators work to determine whether they are a safe way to relieve the pain of COVID-19 vaccination or symptoms of the disease. Early on in the pandemic, French health officials warned that NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, could worsen coronavirus disease, and they recommended switching to acetaminophen instead. The National Health Service in the United Kingdom followed with a similar recommendation for acetaminophen. But the European Medicines Agency took a different approach, reporting “no scientific evidence” that NSAIDs could worsen COVID-19. The US Food and Drug Administration also opted not to take a stance. The debate prompted discussion on social media, with various reactions from around the world. It also inspired Craig Wilen, MD, PhD, from Yale University School of Medicine (more…)

After more than 3 months of record-breaking surges of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States, the national numbers are finally going in a welcome direction: down. Since early January — when the 7-day rolling average of new cases neared 250,000 — the country’s caseload has rapidly dropped by more than two thirds, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But public health experts are divided over what’s driving this decline and what explains its speed. Their likeliest explanation: individual behavioral changes. “We’re just seeing such a huge decrease because it was such a huge increase,” says Diane Griffin, MD, PhD, a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. The surge, she says, was partly fueled by social activities during the winter (more…)

CDC is actively working to learn more about the whole range of short- and long-term health effects associated with COVID-19. As the pandemic unfolds, we are learning that many organs besides the lungs are affected by COVID-19 and there are many ways the infection can affect someone’s health. While most persons with COVID-19 recover and return to normal health, some patients can have symptoms that can last for weeks or even months after recovery from acute illness. Even people who are not hospitalized and who have mild illness can experience persistent or late symptoms. Multi-year studies are underway to further investigate. CDC continues to work to identify how common these symptoms are, who is most likely to get them, and whether these symptoms eventually resolve. The most commonly reported long-term symptoms include: Fatigue Shortness of breath Cough Joint pain Chest (more…)

A European study found patients with mild cases of COVID-19 were much more likely to report losing their sense of smell than patients with moderate to critical cases. Almost all the patients got their sense of smell back within 6 months, the study said. Researchers questioned and observed 2,581 COVID-19 patients from 18 European hospitals from March to June about olfactory dysfunction (OD), or loss of smell, according to the study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine. OD is one of the most common symptoms of the coronavirus. Patients reported a loss of smell in 85.9% of mild cases of COVID-19, 4.5% in moderate cases, and 6.9% in severe to critical cases, the study said. A person was judged to have a mild case if there was no evidence of viral pneumoniaand they were recovering at home. Patients reported (more…)