COPENHAGEN/OSLO/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Denmark, Sweden and Norway said on Friday they needed more time to decide whether to use AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine even though the EU drug watchdog said the benefits outweighed the risks, prompting several countries to resume its use. “We need time to get to the bottom of this,” Soren Brostrom, head of […]
(Reuters Health) – The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine developed with the University of Oxford has an efficacy of only 10.4% against the South African variant of the virus, according to data published online Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine. In the test on 2,026 HIV-negative volunteers, mild-to-moderate disease caused by any type of SARS-CoV-2 […]
(Reuters) – Canadian drug developer Medicago said on Tuesday it had started a late-stage study of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine combined with an adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline. The study plans to eventually enroll 30,000 participants and initially focus on healthy adults, followed by adults over the age of 65 and those with co-morbidities. Medicago, which has […]
GENEVA/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – The World Health Organization appealed to countries on Monday not to pause vaccination campaigns after two more European nations and one in Asia joined a handful which have suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine over safety fears. Thailand announced plans on Monday to go ahead with the Anglo-Swedish firm’s shot but Indonesia […]
New pills to treat patients with COVID-19 are currently in midstage clinical trials and, if successful, could be ready by the end of the year. Only one treatment — remdesivir (Veklury) — has been fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patients in the hospital and it must be administered intravenously. […]
ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Thursday adding its drug Actemra to Gilead Sciences’ Veklury medication, also called remdesivir, did not reduce hospital stays for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Roche’s anti-inflammatory Actemra combined with Veklury, Gilead’s antiviral drug, failed to reduce hospitalisation durations in the REMDACTA trial, which compared the cocktail with […]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children hospitalized with acute COVID-19 infection and multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) may develop acute kidney injury, according to a new report. “In general, it seems that children get less severely ill with COVID, but if they are hospitalized, the medical community should realize that acute kidney injury can occur,” Dr. […]
MADRID (Reuters) – The coronavirus lockdown has led to a plunge in the number of monthly births in Spain to the lowest recorded level ever, preliminary statistics showed on Wednesday, matching similar signs of decline elsewhere in Europe. Only 23,226 babies were born in December, 20.4% fewer than in December 2019 and the lowest since […]
LONDON (Reuters) – Governments and airlines in Europe are hoping that vaccine certificates and digital health apps can help make travel for the masses a reality again this summer after a year of COVID-19 restrictions. What options are being considered, how do they work and what are the concerns? WHAT IS NEEDED AND WHY? Currently […]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Cats are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, but transmissibility is reduced as the virus spreads through cats, according to new research from China. Studies have suggested that domestic cats may become infected with SARS-CoV-2 from patients with COVID-19, arousing concern that cats could spread the virus to humans, although there is […]
