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Here are the stories of coronavirus that Medscape editors around the world think you need to know about today:
Fax Challenge Files
More than 32,000 people volunteered to participate in challenge studies for COVID-19 vaccines, which would involve exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in an effort to accelerate vaccine development and availability.
Bioethicists and physicians are debating the approach, which does not currently use vaccine studies. Proponents of the idea say that challenge trials could shift months of timeline for development, but others are saying the extra risk the volunteers could face comes at a high cost: their health, or potentially their lives.
In a speech Friday, American president of the American Medical Association (AMA) Susan Bailey, MD, said that people deliberately exposing SARS-CoV-2 “would be unethical.” Trials recruit health care workers who are more often exposed to the virus than the general public, she said, but to understand how well the vaccines work, “it will take time to see how many people in their regular lifestyle and work get the virus.”
Desperate PPE measures
Small, independent practices have struggled to obtain adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic, causing delays in reopening and providing health care providers. But non-profit organizations and medical associations have begun to step in to fill the gap, organizing programs to pool doctors’ orders so they can buy PPE in bulk.
The medical associations collect orders from their members over a period of 1 week, then the non-profit buys the supplies and distributes them. The demand has been greater than the organizers thought.
“This is not a long-term solution,” said AMA President Bailey. “We are just trying to fill the gap and urge the administration to pull any leverage it can to increase PPE production.”
Testing: who, when, and how?
Diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is critical, but who, when and how to test it is not always clear. Medscape has those answers and more in a diagnostic testing manual.
Fatal pulmonary fibrosis
Doctors in Denmark described the case of a woman with COVID-19 who developed fatal pulmonary fibrosis after acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). As many as 42% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 develop ARDS, which is a known cause of pulmonary fibrosis.
In practice, what this means for clinicians treating patients with COVID-19, especially those with ARDS, is that they should wait for the development of pulmonary fibrosis, even after mild illness, and there should be a low threshold. be for repeat CT scans and lung function in patients who grow up to months after their acute COVID-19 persistence or have less breath, “commented one doctor from London.
Severe COVID-19 Rare in children
Critical pediatric COVID-19 is rare, with variable symptoms and generally good outcomes compared to adults, according to preliminary data from the Critical Coronavirus and Kids Epidemiology study.
The researchers collected information from 65 pediatric intensive care units in 18 countries, and in a new paper described initial insights from the first 17 children with severe as critical COVID-19 from 10 pediatric intensive care units in Chile, Colombia, Italy, Spain, and the United States.
NIH Remdesivir Clinical Trial Update
A randomized, controlled clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the immunomodulator interferon beta-1a in combination with inhibitor derivatives has been initiated in COVID-19 patients, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Thursday. The study, also known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial 3, aims to admit more than 1,000 hospitals to COVID-19 patients in approximately 100 locations worldwide.
All participants will receive standard doses of remdesivir such as interferon beta-1a as a placebo. Researchers will assess if the time to recovery is shorter in the combination therapy group relative to the brake-only group.
FDA invokes diagnostic rapid test
Following the issuance of an emergency use authorization for Autobio Diagnostics’ anti-SARS-CoV-2 rapid test on April 24, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew it on Thursday, according to a letter from Denise M. Hinton, chief scientist at FDA.
After further testing, the FDA has “concluded that this test is unlikely to be effective in detecting SARS-CoV-2 IgM antibodies and that the known and potential benefits of its use do not outweigh the known and potential risks. , “Hinton wrote.
Trending Clinical Topic: Vitamin D
Results of a study published online in The FEBS magazine showed that low plasma vitamin D levels are an independent risk factor for COVID-19 infection and hospitalization. This new finding caught the attention of our readers, so we present it as our latest trending clinical topic.
The week that was not in COVID-19
In the recent COVID-19 news, scientists experimenting with a do-it-yourself vaccine, researchers investigated that a compound extract from seaweed could be a more effective antiviral than inhibitor, and a study suggested that eating cabbage was associated with lower mortality of COVID- 19. But you did not look at these headers Medscape Medical News. Here’s why.
In memoiriam
When frontline healthcare workers care for patients with COVID-19, they commit to cumbersome, dehydrating work and put themselves at risk for infection. Thousands all over the world have died.
Medscape has published a to-do list to remember them. We will continue to update this list as needed. Please help us ensure that this list is complete by submitting names with an age, occupation or specialty, and location via this form.
If you want to share other experiences, stories or concerns related to the pandemic, please join the conversation here.
Victoria Giardina is the editorial intern of Medscape. She has previously written for The Dr. Oz Show and is currently a national lifestyle writer for Her Campus. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @VickyRGiardina.
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