Search Tag: COVID-19
2022 17 Feb
This article highlights the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient quality and safety and discusses an academy designed to support nurses to design and implement innovative solutions. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the crisis of patient safety with an increase in hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) after more than...Read more
2022 14 Feb
Many individuals with COVID-19 report symptoms lasting for over four weeks, but for some, these symptoms persist past 12 weeks. Some described extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction, i.e. ‘brain fog’, or a persistent loss of taste or smell. The prevalence of this symptom cluster, colloquially known as ‘Long-COVID’, has been...Read more
2022 08 Feb
In 2014, a consensus statement was published on mass critical care during public health emergencies. Over the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted gaps in prior pandemic planning and the need for modification based on experiences acquired during the surges of COVID-19 throughout the world. A subcommittee from the Task Force for...Read more
2022 08 Feb
Pain is one of the most distressful symptoms among critically ill patients, along with shortness of breath and delirium. Pain is reported by 38 to 51% of patients at risk of dying. Delirium is highly prevalent among patients who are critically ill and is associated with worse short-term and long-term outcomes, including in-hospital mortality, longer...Read more
2022 01 Feb
Non-invasive respiratory support is an essential part of critical care. Non-invasive ventilation and high-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) are commonly used in patients with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure. Non-invasive respiratory support can alleviate respiratory distress, improve oxygenation and reduce the need for invasive mechanical ventilation....Read more
2022 28 Jan
Aris Katzourakis, PhD, professor of evolution and genomics at St. Hilda’s College (Oxford, U.K.), warns that misuse of the word ‘endemic’ is encouraging complacency. In an epidemiological context, ‘endemic’ means that the infection rates are in equilibrium, neither rising nor falling. It does not describe the infection’s severity or its health consequences....Read more
2022 18 Jan
After little over two years, governments worldwide are still dealing with the challenge of ending the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, vaccines have been available for a year, but a loud minority has refused them and the vaccination certificates that accompany them. Many nations have imposed stricter rules and restrictions on the unvaccinated to...Read more
2022 11 Jan
Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla said a redesigned COVID-19 vaccine that specifically targets the Omicron coronavirus variant is likely needed and his company could have one ready to launch by March. Bourla said Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE are working on both an Omicron-targeted vaccine version as well as a shot that would include both...Read more
2022 05 Jan
On Monday in the U.S where 62% of the entire population is vaccinated, 1,080,211 new COVID-19 cases were reported, a figure double of that four days prior and a new global record for a single country. On Tuesday, the U.K., France, and Australia also reached record levels, each reaching 200,000, 270,000 and 65,000 daily cases for the first time. In...Read more
2022 05 Jan
STORY UPDATE: Novak Djokovic has been denied entry to Australia after an extraordinary mix-up with his visa application. It seems his team requested a sub-class of visa that does not apply to those with a medical exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine. This news comes in the midst of a furious backlash from tennis fans around the world who are angry...Read more
2021 29 Dec
According to a report published in Academic Radiology , the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the demographics and clinical composition of exams in paediatric radiology practice. Massachusetts General Hospital researchers quantified changes between pre-pandemic (15 September 2019 to 15 March 2020) and pandemic (15 March 2020 to 1 May 2020) periods...Read more
2021 28 Dec
Around the world, government leaders and advisors are planning strategies for mitigating Omicron impact, which infects previously vaccinated individuals. Although Onicrom produces less severe disease than earlier COVID-19 strains, the variant’s substantially greater transmissibility creates other problems. Massive staffing shortages resulting from...Read more
2021 23 Dec
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for businesses with at least 100 workers and health care workers on 7 January. This follows a recent ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which lifted an injunction that blocked the Occupational Safety and Health...Read more
2021 22 Dec
PAXLOVID™ (nirmatrelvir [PF-07321332] tablets and ritonavir tablets) is authorized for emergency use in both high-risk adults and high-risk pediatric patients 12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kg EUA based on clinical data from EPIC-HR study, showing PAXLOVID reduced risk of hospitalization or death by 89% (within three days of symptom...Read more
2021 22 Dec
The European Commission granted conditional marketing authorisation for Novavax’s COVID-19 Vaccine for individuals 18 years or older. The U.S. biotech, Novavax , currently holds emergency use authorisations for its two-dose vaccine in the Philippines and Indonesia and has received emergency use listing from the World Health Organization. Unlike...Read more
2021 18 Dec
According to findings presented at Euroanaesthesia 2021, among patients with COVID-19 admitted to the ICU, those with an abrupt decline in kidney function are more likely to die during hospitalisation than those with pre-existing kidney disease. In addition, findings show that renal replacement therapy does not improve their chances of survival. ...Read more
2021 15 Dec
The World Health Organization labelled the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 a ‘variant of concern’ because of its potential to evade immunity conferred by prior infection and the current COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines are directed against previous versions of the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells. The possibility...Read more
2021 14 Dec
The use of aspirin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 because of its anti-thrombotic properties. Thrombosis is a key feature of COVID-19, with 5-30% of hospitalised patients having a major venous thromboembolic event and up to 3% having an arterial thromboembolic event. The Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial is...Read more
2021 14 Dec
Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) was described as a syndrome in 1967. At that time, it was defined as a condition characterised by severe hypoxaemia and diffuse bilateral opacities. Diagnosis of ARDS has always been context-dependent, but overall, achievements in traumatic and medical resuscitation and the use of invasive mechanical ventilation...Read more
2021 11 Dec
Given the ongoing challenges brought about by the global pandemic, the European Society of Radiology (ESR) President Prof Dr Regina Beets-Tan announced on Friday that ESR will postpone the annual ESR 2022 meeting in Vienna to 13-17 July. She explains: ‘we are currently confronted with significant legal uncertainty regarding the organisation of...Read more
2021 07 Dec
A major challenge in ICUs even before the COVID-19 pandemic was ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). However, now that the ICUs are even more overwhelmed with the complex and prolonged acute care of patients with COVID-19, VAP has become an even bigger issue. It has an overall incidence of 40 to 60%, but the problem is that the variation on VAP definitions...Read more
2021 06 Dec
COVID-19 sped digital healthcare development in 2020, as care providers implemented digital methods to keep patients and staff safe during the pandemic. Dr Vishal Desai in a prerecorded session for RSNA 2021, described how Thomas Jefferson University’s radiology service managed their transformation from a traditional health care appointment process...Read more
2021 30 Nov
Findings from a large international study on brain complications of COVID-19 were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago. Study findings show that approximately one in 100 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 will develop complications of the central nervous system. These complications can include...Read more
2021 30 Nov
There is panic around the globe as news of a new variant of coronavirus circulated this week. The variant is believed to harbour a large number of mutations and is spreading quickly across the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified it as a variant of concern and named it Omicron. Omicron is the latest in line of SARS-CoV-2 variants...Read more
2021 27 Nov
On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new Omicron variant of South Africa to be ‘of concern’, WHO’s most serious category. The new SARS-CoV-2 variant features over 30 mutations in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells. Since effective antibodies and vaccines are directed to previous versions of the spike...Read more