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
    • 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

Categories

  • Files

Calendars

  • Community Calendar

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 2,335 results
  1. News Article
    Home test kits for a virus which attacks the liver are now available to order online in England, as the NHS tries to reach those needing treatment. Hepatitis C tends to affect current or past drug users and people who have had contact with infected blood through a tattoo or medical procedure abroad. It can lead to liver disease and cancer, but symptoms often go unnoticed for many years. The NHS website says it can usually be cured by taking a course of tablets. More than 70,000 people are thought to be living with the virus in England. Some may not know they have it, so would be unlikely to go to their GP for a test. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 May 2023
  2. News Article
    Monkeypox is no longer a global public health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, almost a year after the threat was raised. The virus is still around and further waves and outbreaks could continue, but the highest level of alert is over, the WHO added. The global health body's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to "remain vigilant". More than 87,000 cases and 140 deaths have been reported from 111 countries during the global outbreak, according to a WHO count. But almost 90% fewer cases were recorded over the last three months compared with the previous three-month period, meaning the highest level of alert is no longer required, Tedros said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2023
  3. News Article
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that Covid-19 no longer represents a "global health emergency". The statement represents a major step towards ending the pandemic and comes three years after it first declared its highest level of alert over the virus. Officials said the virus' death rate had dropped from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 on 24 April. The head of the WHO said at least seven million people died in the pandemic. But Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the true figure was "likely" closer to 20 million deaths - nearly three times the official estimate - and he warned that the virus remained a significant threat. "Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I've accepted that advice. It is therefore with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency," Dr Tedros said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 May 2023
  4. News Article
    The mother of a young woman who died with herpes said she was "disgusted" with an NHS trust which "lied" about the potential cause of the virus. Kim Sampson and Samantha Mulcahy died with herpes after the same obstetrician at the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust carried out their caesareans. Yvette Sampson's daughter had been "fit and healthy" until she gave birth on 3 May 2018, an inquest has heard. She said the trust had lied about links between the two mothers' deaths. They were treated by the same surgeon and midwife six weeks apart, neither of whom were tested for herpes, the inquest in Maidstone was told. Ms Sampson said her daughter had been "in agony" from 3 May when she gave birth to her second child, until she died on 22 May. She told the inquest she had received "poor treatment" by midwives at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate, which she felt also "contributed" to her daughter's death. Ms Sampson was initially denied a Caesarean and instead told to push for almost three hours, despite repeatedly telling midwives that "something wasn't right" and "clinging to the bed in agony", her mother said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 April 2023
  5. News Article
    The UK is not ready for the next global pandemic because public services are being dismantled and key research is being defunded, experts have claimed. More than three years after the global outbreak of coronavirus, top scientists have warned that the UK is no better prepared for a pandemic than it was in 2020. They say another epidemic on the scale of Covid-19 is inevitable, but that disinvestment in infection-monitoring services, dismantling of key infrastructure, and the state of the NHS mean the country is “losing ground”. Sir John Bell, a leading immunologist and a member of the UK’s Covid vaccine taskforce during the pandemic, said it was too easy to dismiss Covid-19 as a “once in a generation crisis”. Writing in The Independent, he warned that it is “a question of when, not if, another pandemic strikes”, adding that the nation needs to adopt an “always on” approach that includes building a more resilient healthcare system, carrying out better surveillance, and identifying future threats. Read full story Source: The Independent, 18 April 2023
  6. News Article
    Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be related to Covid infection, data suggests. The research adds to mounting evidence the pandemic may be contributing to a rapidly escalating diabetes crisis, with individuals who have experienced more severe Covid at greatest risk. However, lifestyle factors such as being overweight or obese continue to be the main driver for the increase, with 4.3 million officially diagnosed cases in the UK alone. Although previous research has hinted that Sars-CoV-2 infection may increase the risk of developing diabetes – possibly by damaging insulin-producing cells in the pancreas – these studies were either relatively small or limited to specific groups of individuals, such as US military veterans, who may not represent the general population. To delve deeper, Prof Naveed Janjua at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his colleagues turned to the British Columbia Covid-19 Cohort, a surveillance platform that links data on Covid infections and vaccinations with sociodemographic and administrative health data. They examined records from 629,935 people who took a PCR test for Covid and found those who tested positive were significantly more likely to experience a new diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the following weeks and months – with 3-5% of new diabetes cases attributable to Covid overall. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 April 2023
  7. News Article
    Covid-19 has dropped out of the top five leading causes of death in England and Wales for the first time since the start of the pandemic, figures show. Coronavirus was recorded as the main cause of death for 22,454 people in 2022, or 3.9% of all deaths registered, making it the sixth leading cause overall. In both 2020 and 2021 Covid-19 was the leading cause of death, with 73,766 deaths (12.1% of the total) and 67,350 (11.5%) respectively. By contrast, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease was the leading cause in England and Wales in 2022, with 65,967 deaths registered (11.4% of the total), up from 61,250 (10.4%) in 2021. The other causes in the top five were ischaemic heart diseases (59,356 deaths and 10.3% of the total); chronic lower respiratory diseases (29,815 deaths, 5.2%); cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes and aneurysms (29,274 deaths, 5.1%); and trachea, bronchus and lung cancer (28,571 deaths, 5.0%). Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 April 2023
  8. News Article
    NHS leaders and ministers face allegations of a “cover up”, as Byline Times reveals that almost two-thirds of NHS employers did not make a single, legally-required report of Covid being caught by staff working during the first 18 months of the pandemic. And four-fifths (82%) of NHS employers have not reported a single death of a worker from Covid caught while working in those first two waves. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurrences (RIDDOR) rules mean that employers have a legal duty to report certain serious workplace accidents and occupational diseases – including Covid. The lack of acceptance of responsibility from NHS employers has left some families in limbo – and angry at what they consider to be deliberate “denial” of the experiences of those who died serving the public. David Osborn, a health and safety consultant and member of the Covid-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA), co-wrote the research. He said: “One wonders how many bereaved families who have been denied this payment did not have the benefit of [these reports] to support their case.” Osborn wrote to Sarah Albon, Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Executive, to raise his concerns after speaking with family members of NHS workers who had died of Covid, saying the reports of zero NHS worker deaths from Covid caught in the workplace are “difficult, nigh impossible, to believe.” Read full story Source: Byline Times, 6 April 2023
  9. News Article
    A virus carried by ticks, which is common in many parts of the world, is now present in the UK and health officials are reminding the public how to avoid bites from the tiny bugs. They say the risk of tick-borne encephalitis is very low—only one person is confirmed to have been infected in England so far, last year. But the tick species which carries the virus is widespread in the UK. Most people do not develop symptoms but swelling to the brain is possible. The UK Health Security Agency has recommended changes to testing in hospital so that any new cases can be picked up quickly. Health officials say anyone who becomes unwell after a tick bite should see a GP. More serious symptoms to look out for include severe headache, stiff neck, unexplained seizure, sudden confusion and weakness in arms and legs. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 April 2023
  10. News Article
    Two concurrent outbreaks of the Marburg virus, a close cousin of Ebola that can kill as many as 90 percent of the people it infects, are raising critical questions about the behaviour of this mysterious bat-borne pathogen and global efforts to prepare for potential pandemics. Marburg causes high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding from orifices. It spreads between people via direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people and with surfaces and materials such as clothing contaminated with these fluids. One of the two outbreaks, in Tanzania in East Africa, seems to have been brought under control, with just two people left in quarantine. But in the other, in Equatorial Guinea on the west coast, spread of the virus is ongoing, and the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that the country was not being transparent in reporting cases. The WHO said both outbreaks pose regional risks: Equatorial Guinea has porous borders with Cameroon and Gabon, and so far the cases have appeared in geographically diffuse parts of the country. In Tanzania, the Kagera region has busy borders with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Read full story (paywalled) New York Times, 5 April 2023
  11. News Article
    Covid testing is being scaled back even further in England from April. It is part of the "living with Covid" approach that relies on vaccines to keep people safe. Most staff and patients in hospitals and care homes will no longer be given swab tests, even if they have symptoms. Some will though, such as staff working with severely immunocompromised patients or if there is an outbreak on a ward or in a hospice or prison, for example. The long-running Office for National Statistics Covid infection survey that estimated how many people in the community had the virus each week - based on nose and throat swabs from volunteers - has already come to an end. The final one suggested 1.7 million people - about one out of every 35 (2.7%) - had Covid in the week ending 13 March, a14% rise on the previous week. But the UK Health Security Agency says thanks to the continuing success of the vaccination programme, testing in England can now become more like the approach used for other common respiratory infections such as flu. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 March 2023
  12. News Article
    NHS Highland has been reprimanded for a data breach which revealed the personal email addresses of people invited to use HIV services. The health board used CC (carbon copy) instead of BCC (blind carbon copy) to send an email to 37 people. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said the error amounted to a "serious breach of trust". It called for improvements to be made to data protection safeguards for HIV service providers. The mistake meant all recipients of the email could see the personal addresses of the others receiving it. One person said they recognised four other individuals, one of whom was a previous sexual partner. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 March 2023
  13. News Article
    UK ministers should act to ensure Long Covid sufferers receive the support they need from employers, with as many as two-thirds claiming they have been unfairly treated at work, a report argues. The report, from the TUC and the charity Long Covid Support, warns that failing to accommodate the 2m people who, according to ONS data, may be suffering from long Covid in the UK will create, “new, long-lasting inequalities”. The analysis is based on responses from more than 3,000 long Covid sufferers who agreed to share their experiences. Two-thirds said they had experienced some form of unfair treatment at work, ranging from harassment to being disbelieved about their symptoms or threatened with disciplinary action. One in seven said they had lost their job. The report makes a series of recommendations, including urging the government to designate Long Covid as a disability for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act, to make clear sufferers are entitled to “reasonable adjustments” at work; and to classify Covid-19 as an occupational disease to allow people who contracted it through their job to seek compensation. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 March 2023
  14. Content Article
    Community hospitals are an important part of local health and care systems, yet there has been very little shared on their role and contribution during the pandemic. This project from the Community Hospitals Association sought to redress this and highlight the role of these local hospitals. This two-year project enabled staff to reflect on their experiences and innovations in their community hospitals during the pandemic in a systematic way that facilitated wider sharing and learning. It captures the experiences of staff working in UK community hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on positive impact changes. 
  15. Content Article
    Dr Nabarro’s recent comment made on Independent Sage 2 December, that Covid-19 is primarily a droplet-borne infection, flies in the face of overwhelming international scientific consensus that the pandemic is driven by airborne transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Despite airborne transmission being accepted as the dominant mode of spread in almost every other arena, within official infection prevention and control (IPC) bodies in the World Health Organization (WHO) and many national authorities including the UK, there is denial or minimising of airborne spread, and continuing adherence to the droplet theory of transmission. This has meant rejection of airborne mitigations within healthcare, with profound consequences for the lives and health of healthcare workers, as well as for patients in hospitals and care homes. It is now clear that the IPC authorities will not be persuaded, no matter how much evidence is presented to them that SARS-CoV-2 is primarily airborne, and that efforts by aerosol scientists, engineers and health experts to provide further evidence of this, are futile.  This statement from Doctors in Unite explores these issues in detail, and highlights the disastrous record of droplet-only precautions in our hospitals and care homes. It also asks why the critically important “precautionary principle” was not applied throughout healthcare from the outset, to keep workers and patients safe, while the mode of transmission of the virus was being fully elucidated, despite this being official WHO policy. 
  16. Content Article
    Health workers, hailed as heroes during the pandemic, say they’re being abandoned by the NHS and the government. Some are living with Long Covid and say it’s having a devastating impact on both their personal and professional lives. For Panorama, the BBC’s health correspondent, Catherine Burns, meets staff struggling to return to work and reveals how some are now facing financial hardship and the prospect of having to retire early or, worse, being sacked.
  17. Content Article
    Young people from across the UK reflect on how the pandemic is still affecting their lives and their plans for the future, 18 months after the end of the third national lockdown.
  18. Content Article
    The safety, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of molnupiravir, an oral antiviral medication for SARS-CoV-2, has not been established in vaccinated patients in the community at increased risk of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19. In this study, Butler et al. aimed to establish whether the addition of molnupiravir to usual care reduced hospital admissions and deaths associated with COVID-19 in this population. The authors conclude that molnupiravir did not reduce the frequency of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations or death among high-risk vaccinated adults in the community.
  19. Content Article
    A Channel 5 News investigation has found nearly three quarters of people getting help for Long Covid weren't given a face-to-face appointment. It's estimated 2.1 million UK people have the condition. A Long Covid hauler herself, 5 News reporter Ruth Liptrot looks at where we're at with finding a treatment.
  20. Content Article
    This blog focuses on a poster presented at the World Congress on Pain that recently took place in Toronto and discusses the connection between Long Covid and fibromyalgia.
  21. Content Article
    This report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies examines how NHS funding, resources and treatment volumes compare with pre-pandemic levels. The study examines how the funding, staffing and hospital beds available to the NHS have changed since 2019, comparing the number of patients treated by the NHS in eight different areas compares with 2019 levels. For most areas of care, the NHS is still struggling to treat more people than it was pre-pandemic, despite having – on the face of it – additional staff and funding. The report considers a range of different factors that could explain this seeming fall in performance and output. 
  22. Content Article
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has been tracking the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020. This report is a comprehensive and consistent measurement of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by estimating excess deaths, by month, for 2020 and 2021. It estimates 14.83 million excess deaths globally, 2.74 times more deaths than the 5.42 million reported as due to COVID-19 for the period. There are wide variations in the excess death estimates across the six World Health Organization regions.
  23. News Article
    A consultant oncologist who ignored a hospital instruction and attended patients’ cancer surgery on two days when he knew he was still testing positive for Covid-19 has been suspended from the UK medical register for three months. Andrew Gaya admitted knowingly breaking the rules but told the medical practitioners tribunal he had feared that the patients’ treatments would be postponed if he could not attend the private London Gamma Knife Centre, part of HCA Healthcare UK. The two incidents occurred in the early weeks of the pandemic, at a time of high covid death rates. “I did not take the decision to attend the centre on 3 April 2020 lightly and was aware it was not in accordance with the instructions I had been given,” Gaya told the tribunal. “At the time I thought that I wasn’t going to do any harm and that I was acting in the best interests of the patient as the case was urgent. “I know I should have telephoned [the relevant manager] and asked if she would allow me to undertake the treatment, but I was afraid her answer would be ‘no’ and that the patient’s treatment would be cancelled,” he told the tribunal in a witness statement. Both patients have since died, but after the tribunal concluded Gaya told the Daily Telegraph, “One lived for 6 months with good quality of life.” Gaya, who was present as part of a multidisciplinary team, wore protective gear and observed social distancing. There is no evidence that he had infected anyone. Read full story Source: BMJ, 1 November 2022
  24. News Article
    The Covid public inquiry has asked to see Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages during his time as prime minister as part of its probe into decision-making. Counsel for the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, said the messages had been requested alongside thousands of other documents. He said a major focus of this part of the inquiry was understanding how the "momentous" decisions to impose lockdowns and restrictions were taken. The revelations came as he set out the details of how this module will work. The inquiry is being broken down into different sections - or modules as they are being called. The preliminary hearing for module one, looking at how well prepared the UK was, took place last month. Monday marked the start of the preliminary hearing for module two, which is looking at the political decision-making. Mr Keith said this allowed the inquiry to take a "targeted approach". He said it would look at whether lives could have been saved by introducing an earlier lockdown at the start of 2020. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 October 2022
  25. News Article
    A surge in Covid cases over winter could lead to harsh visiting restrictions being reimposed in care homes and hospitals, MPs and campaigners have warned. Families are still facing a “postcode lottery” of Covid restrictions in care homes, with visiting times restricted and personal protective equipment (PPE) obligatory. However MPs are worried that some will reimpose even harsher measures if Covid cases rise this winter. Daily global Covid infections are projected to rise slowly to around 18.7 million by February, up from the current 16.7 million average daily cases this October. MPs are calling for the government to enact legislation that would enshrine the right for an essential care giver to be present with their loved ones in care settings. Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Cooper said that one of her constituents, Lynn, was not allowed into a hospital A&E ward to see her husband Andy when his dementia deteriorated over Christmas last year. The hospital refused to let Andy have any visitors for two weeks until Ms Cooper intervened. When she was allowed in, Lynn was distraught to find that Andy had lost a significant amount of weight in the weeks he was isolated. Ms Cooper continued: “We have come a long way since last Christmas, and since the start of the pandemic, but as winter approaches the NHS and care settings are once again expected to struggle with a surge in Covid cases. “It is not inconceivable that what happened to Lynn and Andy could happen again to them and to many others.” Read full story Source: Independent, 30 October 2022 Further hub reading Visiting restrictions and the impact on patients and their families: a relative's perspective It’s time to rename the ‘visitor’: reflections from a relative Mother knows best – a blog by Dr Abha Agrawal
×
×
  • Create New...