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The following is a summary of some of the latest scientific studies on the new coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Higher risk of death found if COVID-19 causes heart changes
A new study may help identify which COVID-19 patients with signs of heart injury are at higher risk of death. Doctors observed 305 hospitalized patients with elevated levels of troponin, a protein released when the heart is injured. They reported Monday at the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that among these patients, the increased risk of death was statistically significant only when changes in the size, shape, structure, and function of the heart were observed during an echocardiogram. Death rates were 5.2% in patients without troponin in the blood, 18.6% when troponin was high but the heart appeared normal, and 31.7% in those with high troponin plus so-called cardiac remodeling. When other risk factors were considered, high troponin was only associated with death in patients who also had cardiac remodeling. Troponin-High COVID-19 Patients Should Have Echocardiography “To guide further diagnostic testing and treatment strategies,” co-author Dr. Gennaro Giustino, of Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, told Reuters. “Bad echo patients need much closer follow-up and more aggressive treatments, ”said Dr. Carl Lavie of Ochsner Health in New Orleans, co-author of an editorial on the study.
COVID-19 may be the leading cause of death among young adults in some regions of the United States.
In some areas of the United States during the COVID-19 outbreaks, the new coronavirus likely became the leading cause of death among adults ages 25 to 44say the researchers. Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), they looked at all-cause deaths in that age group from March to July, along with drug overdose deaths over the same period. in 2018, the most recent year for which data is found. available. In three of the country’s 10 regions, identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, deaths in 2018 exceeded deaths from inadvertent opioid overdoses for at least a month into the pandemic, researchers reported Sunday. on medRxiv, prior to peer review. They were Region 2 (New York, New Jersey), Region 6 (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas), and Region 9 (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada). It’s unclear which states account for the most deaths in each region, co-author Dr. Jeremy Faust, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Reuters. But data not included in the paper suggests that in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana, more people ages 20 to 39 “died from COVID-19 than opioids typically kill during the same time period,” he said. “In general, opioids are the leading cause of death in this demographic nationwide.”
Antibiotic overuse may be on the rise during the pandemic
Unnecessary use of antibiotics, which can lead to the growth of harmful bacteria. resistance to life-saving drugs, has been on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research. Data from 84 large U.S. Veterans Affairs facilities collected during the January-May period over the past six years shows that antibiotic use in those hospitals increased during the initial surge in COVID-19, reversing a trend. down four years. While antibiotic use steadily declined from 2015 to 2019, in 2020 it reached “levels not seen since 2016,” Dr. Matthew Goetz of the VA Greater Los Angeles Health System said Friday during an annual meeting of experts in infectious diseases celebrated practically this year. While the use of antibiotics was not directly related to the number of COVID-19 patients treated in each facility, “the pandemic posed new challenges for hospital systems that were not prepared to handle it, from a flood of patients to a shortage of diagnostic tests, ”Dr. Goetz said. The findings point to a weakening of antibiotic administration practices, he added. – Nancy Lapid / Reuters
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