Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Virus'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 2,337 results
  1. News Article
    An antiviral typically used to treat influenza is a “good contender” for a drug that could be taken at home by people infected with COVID-19, according to a scientist who is trialling the medicine. Favipiravir, licensed as a flu treatment in Japan since 2014, has already shown potential in reducing lung damage in hospitalised Covid patients and speeding up the time taken to clear the virus from the body. But two UK trials, in Glasgow and London, are investigating whether the drug could be taken by people in the community before their disease has progressed, therefore keeping them out of hospital. The government has promised to “supercharge” the search for and development of a new generation of easy-to-take, at-home drugs that can reduce transmission and quicken recovery from COVID-19. A new taskforce, modelled on the team behind Britain’s vaccine procurement programme, is to oversee this work. It intends to deliver two effective treatments - offered in tablet form - to the public as early as autumn. Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 April 2021
  2. News Article
    Pregnant women should be offered a Covid jab when other people their age get one, the UK's vaccine advisers say. They say the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are preferable because data from the US in 90,000 pregnant women has not raised any safety concerns. Up until now, only women with underlying health conditions or those whose risk of exposure to the virus was high were eligible. The shift in advice brings the UK into line with other countries. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation now advises that pregnant women should all be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines where available, at the same time as the rest of the population. They are encouraged to discuss the risks and benefits of the vaccines with their doctor before making the appointment, but it is not a requirement. "There is no evidence to suggest that other vaccines are unsafe for pregnant women, but more research is needed," it added. Currently, there is a lack of data on the AstraZeneca vaccine in pregnancy because pregnant women were not included in trials, but the JCVI says more evidence may be forthcoming in the near future. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 April 2021
  3. News Article
    Sarah Spoor and her two adult sons have spent the past 14 months shielding in a one-bedroom apartment, with no garden, in west London. Her youngest sleeps in the bedroom, his brother has a pull-out bed in the kitchen, while Spoor takes the living room in another fold-out bed. All three have complex medical conditions that leave them vulnerable to Covid, and despite the strain of living in such close quarters, they don’t feel safe leaving home any time soon. “If we catch it, we die; it’s that simple. In the 14 months, I have probably been out about four times, and that’s usually in some dire emergency,” said Spoor, who provides round-the-clock care for her sons, 20 and 24, after their medical team decided it was too risky for their usual carers to continue visiting. The family has yet to be vaccinated as their medical conditions, which include type 1 diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, pernicious anemia and thyroid failure, mean they are likely to experience a severe reaction leading to hospital admission, and they are concerned about the risk of catching Covid in hospital when cases are still prevalent. Spoor is not alone in fearing a return to life after lockdown, with disability charity Scope estimating 75% of disabled people plan to continue shielding until after their second vaccine dose, and some for longer. “I think there is a potential long-term impact that groups of people become squirrelled away and it’s potentially easy for governments and local authorities to forget about them,” said James Taylor, executive director of strategy and social change at Scope. “We’re really worried that, in the long-term, lots of the rights that disabled people have fought for, the visibility, the recognition of disabled people as equal, that all falling away and going backwards.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 April 2021
  4. News Article
    A group of royal colleges has produced guidance for doctors seeing patients who have concerns about symptoms after receiving the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Society for Acute Medicine, and the Royal College of Physicians say that anyone who presents with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 vaccine induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT)1 should have a full blood count to check their platelet level. Symptoms of concern include persistent or severe headaches, seizures, or focal neurology; shortness of breath, persistent chest, or abdominal pain; and swelling, redness, pallor, or cold lower limbs. The advice comes after the HSJ reported that emergency clinicians had raised concerns over a surge in patients attending emergency departments as a result of anxiety over the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Investigations by EU and UK regulators into reports of unusual blood clots after receiving the vaccine concluded that these are a “possible” and “extremely rare” side effect. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that following the announcements, patients had been attending emergency departments after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. “I saw 21 patients with concerns in an eight hour shift, so we have to have a way of dealing with this. It was important for us to have a strategy for managing those patients that didn’t mean that they were getting over-investigated but they were getting reassurance. We also need to be aware that if somebody has significant symptoms it is always possible, given the rarity of VITT, that it is something else,” she said. Read full story Source: BMJ, 13 April 2021
  5. News Article
    Coronavirus death rates are twice as high in insecure jobs as in other professions, new research suggests. The TUC said workers on a contract that does not guarantee regular hours or income, such as zero-hours contracts or casual work, and those in low-paid self-employment, have been more at risk of infection. It’s thought that key workers such as those in social care and delivery driving, which cannot be done from home and require people to come into contact with others, are more insecure. The COVID-19 mortality rate among men in insecure occupations was 51 per 100,000 people aged 20-64, compared with 24 per 100,000 in more secure work, said the union organisation. The mortality rate among women in insecure jobs was 25 per 100,000 people, compared with 13 per 100,000 in more secure occupations. The TUC, which called the figures stark, said more research was needed to understand the links between precarious work and risk of infection and death. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2021
  6. News Article
    Senior government officials have raised “urgent” concerns about the mass expansion of rapid coronavirus testing, estimating that as few as 2% to 10% of positive results may be accurate in places with low Covid rates, such as London. Boris Johnson last week urged everyone in England to take two rapid-turnaround tests a week in the biggest expansion of the multibillion-pound testing programme to date. However, leaked emails seen by the Guardian show that senior officials are now considering scaling back the widespread testing of people without symptoms, due to a growing number of false positives. In one email, Ben Dyson, an executive director of strategy at the health department and one of health secretary Matt Hancock’s advisers, stressed the “fairly urgent need for decisions” on “the point at which we stop offering asymptomatic testing”. On 9 April, the day everyone in England was able to order twice-weekly lateral flow device (LFD) tests, Dyson wrote: “As of today, someone who gets a positive LFD result in (say) London has at best a 25% chance of it being a true positive, but if it is a self-reported test potentially as low as 10% (on an optimistic assumption about specificity) or as low as 2% (on a more pessimistic assumption).” He added that the department’s executive committee, which includes Hancock and the NHS test and trace chief, Dido Harding, would soon need to decide whether requiring people to self-isolate before a confirmatory PCR test “ceases to be reasonable” in low infection areas where there is a high likelihood of a positive result being wrong. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 April 2021
  7. News Article
    Around 4.7 million people were waiting for routine operations and procedures in England in February - the most since 2007, NHS England figures show. Nearly 388,000 people were waiting more than a year for non-urgent surgery compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic began. During January and February, the pressure on hospitals caused by COVID-19 was particularly acute. NHS England said two million operations took place despite the winter peak. However, surgeons said hospitals were still under huge pressure due to the second wave of Covid, which had led to "a year of uncertainty, pain and isolation" for patients waiting for planned treatment. Speaking on a visit to Dartmouth, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would "make sure that we give the NHS all the funding that it needs... to beat the backlog". He said the situation had been "made worse by Covid", and added: "We do need people to take up their appointments and to get the treatment that they need." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 April 2021
  8. News Article
    The NHS must think “very radically” about how it redesigns its elective pathways following the coronavirus pandemic, Sir Simon Stevens has told HSJ. Speaking at the HSJ Leadership Congress yesterday, NHS England’s chief executive said the service should ensure as much elective work is done as possible, while covid prevalence is low, while at the same time thinking about “different ways of doing things”. He declined to outline how many very long-waiters the service had or would have in coming months, explaining that some predictions have been “significantly off” in the past, and that future demand is unknown. The NHS chief stressed that other areas of the service would also face post-covid pressures, announcing a further investment in and expansion of long-covid clinics. “We want to see equivalent attention paid to the increased needs we’ve seen in mental health services, including eating disorders, and we want to make sure that the health service continues to expand its offer for long covid,” he said. “To that end we have 69 clinics identified last year, we will have 83 long covid clinics in place by the end of this month, so a significant expansion there.” There will be at least one in each integrated care system area, he said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 April 2021
  9. News Article
    A cheap drug, commonly used to treat asthma, can help people at home recover more quickly from COVID-19, a UK trial has found. Two puffs of budesonide twice a day could benefit many over-50s with early symptoms around the world, said the University of Oxford research team. There are also early signs the drug could reduce hospital admissions. The NHS says it can now be prescribed by GPs to treat Covid on a case-by-case basis from today. At present, there are few options for treating people with Covid who are not in hospital, apart from paracetamol. This widely-available asthma drug works in the lungs, where coronavirus can do serious damage, and could improve the recovery of at-risk patients who are unwell with Covid at home. Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said he was "delighted" by the trial results so far and he said GPs could prescribe it after "a shared decision conversation" with patients. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 April 2021
  10. News Article
    Emergency clinicians have raised concerns and called for central guidance for dealing with a rush of unnecessary A&E attendances triggered by health anxiety over the Oxford covid vaccine’s safety. HSJ has heard from numerous emergency clinicians who reported an increasing number of attendances from people with very mild symptoms, such as headaches, but who were concerned they might be having a potentially serious reaction to the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab. The reports have come from London, the Midlands, the South, the North West and the East of England. Some expressed concerns about the impact of increased attendances on already busy accident and emergency departments. Senior staff said patients were self-presenting at A&E and at their GPs. HSJ has also been told some emergency departments have been alarmed by the number of patients presenting with mild symptoms who said they were told to go to A&E by their GPs. The concerns follow the announcement by government and regulators earlier this week that under-30s should be offered different covid vaccines where they are available, because of uncertain evidence of a very small risk of serious blood clotting linked to the Oxford/Az jab. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 April 2021
  11. News Article
    Britain is facing a “terrifying” mental health crisis with tens of thousands more children needing specialist help since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists have warned the problem facing the country will get worse before it gets better with new analysis revealing almost 400,000 children and 2.2 million adults sought help for mental health problems during the crisis. While the effect of lockdown and coronavirus has affected people of all ages, children appear to be particularly susceptible. Some 80,226 more children and young people were referred to specialist mental health services between April and December last year, up by 28% on the same months in 2019 to 372,438. Dr Bernadka Dubicka, chairwoman of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "Our children and young people are bearing the brunt of the mental health crisis caused by the pandemic and are at risk of lifelong mental illness." "As a frontline psychiatrist I've seen the devastating effect that school closures, disrupted friendships and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic have had on the mental health of our children and young people." Read full story Source: 9 April, 2021
  12. News Article
    SilverCloud, a digital mental health platform, has launched a new COVID-19 support programme – ‘Space from COVID-19’ – which it has made free and available to everyone in the UK over the age of 18 years, indefinitely. The company hopes to improve access to digital mental health services during the pandemic and beyond, to help shoulder some of the demand that now faces health services in the UK and across the globe. SilverCloud’s new programme brings together a suite of digital resources and support that will assist users in managing and improving their mental health and wellbeing, specifically in regard to the impact of COVID-19. Crucially, it removes potential barriers by being open to all, with or without a clinical referral, and is fee-free for everyone. Dr Lloyd Humphreys, Clinical Psychologist and Head of Europe for SilverCloud, told HTN: “For us, what is really important is to support people during this difficult time. Everyone is talking about the mental health impact of COVID-19, everyone is talking about the problem, but no-one is really offering a solution." Read full story Source: Health Tech Newspaper, 8 April 2021
  13. News Article
    Increasingly strong evidence shows that the UK's vaccination programme is breaking the link between COVID-19 cases and deaths, scientists tracking the epidemic have said. A study found infections had fallen by roughly two-thirds since February, before beginning to level off. This is probably because people are beginning to mix more - but deaths have not followed the same pattern. This was not the case before January, when the vaccine rollout began. The research, commissioned by the government and run by Imperial College London, is based on swabs taken from 140,000 people selected to represent England's population. Of that group, who were tested for the virus between 11 and 30 March, 227 had a positive result, giving a rate of 0.2%, or one in 500 people. But in people over the age of 65, the infection rate was half that with one in 1,000 people testing positive for Covid. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 April 2021
  14. News Article
    GPs should only give the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine to patients with medical conditions which put them at higher risk of developing blood clots if the benefits outweigh the risks, the UK medicines regulator has said. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued the advice to healthcare professionals regarding while it continues to review a link between the vaccine and rare blood clots. It has also added to previous advice regarding symptoms for patients to look out for following their Covid vaccination with the AZ vaccine. The new advice from the MHRA said: Administration of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in people of any age who are at higher risk of blood clots because of their medical condition should be considered only if benefits from the protection from COVID-19 infection outweighs potential risks. Anyone who experienced cerebral or other major blood clots occurring with low levels of platelets after their first vaccine dose of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca should not have their second dose. Anyone who did not have these side effects should come forward for their second dose when invited. Pregnancy predisposes to thrombosis, therefore women should discuss with their healthcare professional whether the benefits of having the vaccine outweigh the risks for them. Meanwhile, ‘anyone who has symptoms four days or more after vaccination is advised to seek prompt medical advice’. These include: a new onset of severe or persistent headache, blurred vision, confusion or seizures develop shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling or persistent abdominal pain, unusual skin bruising or pinpoint round spots beyond the injection site. Read full story Source: Pulse, 7 April 2021
  15. News Article
    One in three people who were severely ill with coronavirus were subsequently diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection, a study has found. The observational research, which is the largest of its kind, used electronic health records of 236,379 patients mostly from the US and found 34% experienced mental health and neurological conditions afterwards. The most common being anxiety, with 17% of people developing this. Experts warned that healthcare systems need to be resourced to deal with patients affected by this, which could be “substantial” given the scale of the pandemic. They anticipate that the impact could be felt on health services for many years. Neurological diagnoses such as stroke and dementia were rarer, but not uncommon in those who had been seriously ill during infection. Of those who had been admitted to intensive care, 7% had a stroke and almost 2% were diagnosed with dementia. The study, which was published in the Lancet Psychiatry, found that these diagnoses were more common in COVID-19 patients than among those who had the flu or respiratory tract infections over the same time period. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 April 2021
  16. News Article
    Patients could be waiting as much as two years for vital operations by the time of the next election due to a “truly frightening” backlog of care caused by the pandemic, the NHS’s former boss has said. Lengthening delays in getting treatment in England are will become a major political problem for Boris Johnson and pose a risk to patients’ health, Sir David Nicholson told the Guardian. “The backlog is truly frightening. We can very easily get to the next election with people waiting over two years. It’s easy to do that,” said Nicholson, citing an explosion in the number of people waiting at least a year since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. “The whole issue of access [to care] is a greater threat to the NHS than privatisation because poor access undermines confidence amongst those people who fund the service – taxpayers,” he added. The widespread suspension of normal NHS diagnostic tests and surgery during the pandemic as hospitals prioritised Covid care has left the service in England with a record 4.59 million people waiting for hospital treatment. That number is set to rise to what the NHS Confederation believes could be as much as 6.9m cases by the end of the year as people on a “hidden waiting list” – who put off seeking help after discovering symptoms of illness – finally visit a GP. According to the most recent figures, the number of people who have been waiting for at least a year has rocketed from 1,613 before the pandemic struck to 304,044. Under the NHS Constitution, 92% of people waiting are meant to be treated within 18 weeks. However, a third of the 4.59 million people have already waited longer than that. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2021
  17. News Article
    Intense pressures on the already overstretched NHS are being exacerbated by the tens of thousands of health staff who are sick with Long Covid, doctors and hospital bosses say. At least 122,000 NHS personnel have the condition, the Office for National Statistics disclosed in a detailed report that showed 1.1 million people in the UK were affected by the condition. That is more than any other occupational group and ahead of teachers, of whom 114,000 have it. Patient care is being hit because many of those struggling with Long Covid are only able to work part-time, are too unwell to perform their usual duties, or often need time off because they are in pain, exhausted or have “brain fog”. “Ongoing illness can have a devastating impact on individual doctors, both physically and by leaving them unable to work. Furthermore, it puts a huge strain on the health service, which was already vastly understaffed before the pandemic hit,” said Dr Helena McKeown, the workforce lead at the British Medical Association, which represents doctors. “With around 30,000 sickness absences currently linked to Covid in the NHS in England, we cannot afford to let any more staff become ill. Simply put, if they are off sick, they’re unable to provide care and patients will not get the care and treatment they need. “In the longer term, if more staff face ongoing illness from past COVID-19 infection, the implications for overall workforce numbers will be disastrous.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 April 2021
  18. News Article
    An estimated 10% to 30% of people who get COVID-19 suffer from lingering symptoms of the disease, or what's known as "long COVID." Judy Dodd, who lives in New York City, is one of them. She spent nearly a year plagued by headaches, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and problems with smell, among other symptoms. She says she worried that this "slog through life" was going to be her new normal. Everything changed after she got her COVID-19 vaccine. "I was like a new person, it was the craziest thing ever," says Dodd, referring to how many of her health problems subsided significantly after her second shot. And she's not alone. As the U.S. pushes to get people vaccinated, a curious benefit is emerging for those with this post-illness syndrome: Their symptoms are easing and, in some cases, fully resolving after they get vaccinated. Judy Dodd suffered lingering symptoms of COVID-19 for nearly a year, until she got her vaccine. It's the latest clue in the immunological puzzle of long COVID, a still poorly understood condition that leaves some who get infected with wide-ranging symptoms months after the initial illness. The notion that a vaccine aimed at preventing the disease may also be a treatment has sparked optimism among patients, and scientists who study the post-illness syndrome are taking a close look at these stories. Read full story Source: NPR, 31 March 2021
  19. News Article
    Fewer than a quarter of people who develop coronavirus symptoms request a test, new research has suggested. The study into adherence to the UK’s test, trace, and isolate system also found only half of those who had symptoms were fully self-isolating towards the end of January, when the latest data is from. Experts, including from the Public Health England (PHE) behavioural science team at Porton Down in Wiltshire, found that only half of people could identify the main coronavirus symptoms, which include a cough, high temperature and loss of taste or smell. The research – based on responses from more than 53,800 UK adults to surveys across the pandemic – said: “Adherence to each stage of test, trace, and isolate is low but improving slowly.” The most common reasons for not requesting a test were thinking the symptoms were not Covid-related, symptoms had improved or were mild and not having had contact with anyone with Covid-19. Men, younger people and those with young children were less likely to self-isolate, as were those from more working-class backgrounds, people experiencing greater financial hardship, and those working in key sectors. Common reasons for not fully self-isolating included to go to the shops or work, for a medical need other than Covid-19, to care for a vulnerable person, to exercise or meet others, or because symptoms were only mild or got better. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 April 2021
  20. News Article
    Today marks the last day that about four million of the most clinically vulnerable people in England and Wales are advised to shield at home. Letters have been sent out to the group in the last few weeks. They are still being advised to keep social contacts at low levels, work from home where possible and stay at a distance from other people. The change comes amid falling Covid cases and hospital admissions. According to NHS Digital, there are 3.8 million shielded patients in England and 130,000 in Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland are expected to lift their restrictions later in April. People affected by shielding included Rob Smith, from Hull, who has muscular dystrophy. Shielding for more than a year has been a "nightmare", he told BBC Breakfast. "Where I was able to go out, I didn't feel I wanted to. I didn't feel confident to face people again," he said. "I've always been sociable.... It's had a massive impact." Mr Smith now says he feels anxious about the future and believes for many people who have been shielding, it will "take time to get used to being out there again". He is also wary of the risk of mixing with others again. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 March 2021
  21. News Article
    Coronavirus tests for patients in mental health hospitals should be couriered to testing labs and prioritised for results to prevent patients being forced to self-isolate for longer than is necessary, according to new guidance. NHS England has told mental health hospitals they need to use dedicated couriers for urgent swabs and tests should be specifically labelled for mental health patients so they can be turned around faster. Health bosses are worried thousands of patients in mental health wards could deteriorate ifare forced to self-isolate in their rooms for longer periods. More than 14,000 patients were being detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act in January 2021, with patients needing to be tested on admission to wards and if they show symptoms. Read full story Source: The Independent, 30 March 2021
  22. News Article
    People aged 16 or over who live with immunosuppressed adults should be prioritised for COVID-19 vaccination alongside priority group 6 (people aged 16 to 65 who have a clinical condition that puts them at higher risk), the UK government’s vaccine advisory committee has said. This would include people living in households with an adult who has a weakened immune system, such as those with blood cancer or HIV, or people on immunosuppressive treatment, including chemotherapy, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said. These people are not only more likely to have poorer outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 infection but may not respond as well to the vaccine as others, recent evidence indicates, said the JCVI. The committee said it had made the new recommendation after evidence emerged showing that the covid-19 vaccines may reduce transmission, meaning that vaccinating those around immunosuppressed individuals could help reduce their risk of infection. The JCVI’s chair of COVID-19 immunisations, Wei Shen Lim, said, “The vaccination programme has so far seen high vaccine uptake and very encouraging results on infection rates, hospitalisations, and mortality. Yet we know that the vaccine isn’t as effective in those who are immunosuppressed. Our latest advice will help reduce the risk of infection in those who may not be able to fully benefit from being vaccinated themselves.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 29 March 2021
  23. News Article
    Tens of thousands of post-operative deaths could be avoided by ensuring patients are given coronavirus vaccines while waiting for elective surgery, a new study suggests. People awaiting surgery around the globe should thus be prioritised for COVID-19 jabs ahead of other groups, according to the research, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Studying data for 141,582 patients from across 1,667 hospitals in 116 countries – including Australia, Brazil, China, India, UAE, the UK and the US, scientists found that between 0.6 and 1.6% of patients have developed coronavirus in the wake of elective surgery. For patients who did contract COVID-19, their risk of death was four to eight times greater than typically seen in the 30 days after surgery. Given the higher risks that surgical patients face, scientists calculate that vaccines are more likely to have a life-saving impact upon pre-operative patients – particularly the over-70s and cancer patients – than among the general population. The researchers estimated that – in order to save one life in the course of a year – 351 people aged over 70 facing cancer surgery required vaccination. This figure rises to 1,840 among over-70s in general. “Pre-operative vaccination could support a safe restart of elective surgery by significantly reducing the risk of Covid-19 complications in patients and preventing tens of thousands of Covid-19-related post-operative deaths,” said co-lead author Aneel Bhangu, from the University of Birmingham. Read full story Source: The Independent, 25 March 2021
  24. News Article
    Many doctors from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds say key risk assessments have still not taken place, or have not been acted on. About 40% of UK doctors in the UK are from BAME backgrounds, yet 95% of the medics who have died from coronavirus were from minority backgrounds. The NHS said last June that its trusts should offer risk assessments to staff, but hundreds told a poll for BBC News that they were still awaiting assessments or action. Of 2,000 doctors who responded, 328 said their risks hadn't been assessed at all, while 519 said they had had a risk assessment but no action had been taken. Another 658 said some action had been taken, with just 383 reporting their risks had been considered in detail and action put into place to mitigate them. One of those who responded was Dr Temi Olonisakin, a junior doctor in London who has Type 1 diabetes. She had her risk assessment early on in the pandemic. "It was as comprehensive as a side A4 paper can be," she says. "I think for a lot of people it felt more like a tick-box exercise, and one that could be used to say: 'We've done what we need to do to make people feel safe' - but I'm not sure in reality that's how people felt." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 March 2021
  25. News Article
    More than 40,600 people have been likely infected with coronavirus while being treated in hospital in England for another reason, raising concerns about the NHS’s inability to protect them. In one in five hospitals at least a fifth of all patients found to have the virus caught it while an inpatient. North Devon district hospital in Barnstaple had the highest rate of such cases among acute trusts in England at 31%. NHS England figures also reveal stark regional differences in patients’ risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 during their stay. Just under a fifth (19%) of those in hospital in the north-west became infected while an inpatient, almost double the 11% rate in London hospitals. Hull University teaching hospitals trust and Lancashire teaching hospitals trust had the joint second highest rate of patients – 28% – who became infected while under their care. The former has had 626 such cases while the latter has had 486. However, the big differences in hospitals’ size and the number of patients they admit mean that the rate of hospital-acquired infection is a more accurate reflection of the success of their efforts to stop transmission of the potentially lethal virus. Doctors and hospitals claim that many of the infections were caused by the NHS’s lack of beds and limitations posed by some hospitals being old, cramped and poorly ventilated, as well as health service bosses’ decision that hospitals should keep providing normal care while the second wave of Covid was unfolding, despite the potential danger to those receiving non-Covid care. “These heartbreaking figures show how patients and NHS staff have been abysmally let down by the failure to suppress the virus ahead of and during the second wave,” said Layla Moran MP, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 March 2021
×
×
  • Create New...