Year: 2024
The improbable victory over smallpox holds lessons for health threats in 2024
NPR Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first learned about the disease’s twisty, storied history in 1996 while interning at the World Health Organization. I was a college student fascinated by the sheer magnitude of what it took to wipe a human disease from the earth for the first time. Over the years, […]
Mar 19, 2024
Four years after the pandemic began, a mental health crisis continues across the country
Pittsburgh Post Empty roadways. Empty restaurants. Empty movie theaters and shopping malls and schools. On March 19, 2020, the world was grappling with the newly emerging Sars-CoV-2 virus. A day earlier, the state had seen its first COVID-related death. Then-Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto announced the city was further restricting “face-to-face interactions” between city employees and […]
Mar 19, 2024
COVID vaccines can cut post-infection heart failure, blood clot risk
The Hill The COVID-19 vaccine can cut the risk of heart failure and blood clots after a COVID-19 infection, a new study in the British Medical Journal found. Previous studies found that a SARS-CoV-2 infection can trigger cardiac and thromboembolic complications, and the risk for a person infected remains high for a year after becoming […]
Mar 19, 2024
CDC Alert: Increase in Global and Domestic Measles Cases and Outbreaks
CDC The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing this Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to inform clinicians and public health officials of an increase in global and U.S. measles cases and to provide guidance on measles prevention for all international travelers aged ≥6 months and all children aged ≥12 months who […]
Mar 19, 2024
Four Years On, the Mysteries of Covid Are Unraveling
New York Times Are superdodgers real? Is Covid seasonal? And what’s behind its strangest symptoms? Here’s what we’ve learned. When the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, nearly everything about the novel coronavirus was an open question: How was it spreading so quickly? How sick would it make people? Would […]
Mar 13, 2024
As Covid Spread, a Strain of Flu Disappeared. Now Scientists Say a Second Could Go Too
Bloomberg Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming Covid-19’s spread led to the global disappearance of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one. For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage […]
Mar 13, 2024
What we know about long COVID — from brain fog to physical fatigue
NPR At a recent Senate hearing on long COVID, Rachel Beale took to the stage and shared her experience managing her symptoms for the past three years. “Long COVID has affected every part of my life,” said the Virginia resident. “I wake up every day feeling tired, nauseous and dizzy. I immediately start planning when I […]
Mar 13, 2024
Covid-19 Causes Global Life Expectancy Drop For First Time In 30 Years
Forbes Global life expectancy decreased between 2019 to 2021 due to deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the results of a new study. The research published in The Lancet featured updates from the Global Burden of Disease Study and showed that global average life expectancy declined by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021. The study began in the […]
Mar 12, 2024
Brazil’s staggering dengue fever crisis is a warning to the world
Washington Post Patients lying motionless in the waiting room, moaning for help. Desperate hunts for an open hospital bed.Emergency room arguments over medication. Not since the darkest days of the covid-19 pandemic, when hospital systems all over this country ruptured under the weight of the disease, has Brazil witnessed such scenes. But this time, it’s […]
Mar 12, 2024
Flu Makes a Late Stand in Some Parts of the U.S.
Medical News Today Overall, hospitalizations of all three major respiratory viruses we track (COVID-19, influenza, and RSV) have decreased markedly from their late-December/early-January peaks this season. (Explore the dataon the Inside Medicine dashboard.) Now, you may recall that I recently wrote that, anecdotally, I felt that I was seeing an increase in flu-associated hospitalizations in the Northeast. Updated […]
Mar 12, 2024