Sudden loss of a sense of smell could be a sign of a COVID-19 infection, doctors recently reported.
The complete loss of smell, or anosmia, is already associated with viruses; about 40% of anosmia cases occur after a viral infection, according to a statement published online on March 21 by ENT UK at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, an association of ear, nose and throat physicians in the United Kingdom.
However, a growing body of data from COVID-19 patients in several countries strongly suggests that "significant numbers" of those patients experienced anosmia as one of the disease's symptoms, according to the ENT UK statement.
Anecdotal evidence further describes the loss of smell and the loss of taste known as dysgeusia in people who had no other symptoms but who tested positive for COVID-19, representatives of the American Academy of OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery (AAOHNS) in Alexandria, Virginia, said in a March 22 statement.
Related: Coronavirus outbreak: Live updates
Doctors with AAOHNS recommended in the statement that loss of taste and smell be added to the list of symptoms when screening for signs of COVID-19, particularly when these sensory losses are isolated that is, not accompanied by any signs of respiratory illness.
Such cases of isolated anosmia have been reported in Iran, the U.S., France and northern Italy, according to the ENT UK statement. Dr. Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, said in the statement that she had personally examined four patients during the past week, all under the age of 40, who exhibited no symptoms other than the sudden loss of smell.
"I think these patients may be some of the hitherto hidden carriers that have facilitated the rapid spread of COVID-19," Hopkins said.
When doctors at the University Hospital Bonn in Germany recently interviewed more than 100 patients infected with COVID-19, they discovered that nearly 70% "described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days," said Dr. Hendrik Streeck, head of the hospital's Institute of Virology.
"It goes so far that a mother could not smell the full diaper of her child.Others could no longer smell their shampoo, and food began to taste bland," Streeck toldthe German news site Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Though the doctors could not say for sure when the loss of smell and taste first appeared in these patients, they suspect that the symptoms manifested as a later stage of the infection, Streeck added.
If people who have anosmia but no other symptoms were to self-isolate for seven days, "we might be able to reduce the number of otherwise asymptomatic individuals who continue to act as vectors," according to the ENT UK statement.
Originally published on Live Science.
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"Given that my wife and I had traveled extensively during the weeks prior to COVID-19 social distancing practices, and that I am at a higher risk for serious complications from the virus due to having part of my lung removed seven months ago, I took a COVID-19 test when I arrived in D.C. last Monday. I felt that it was highly unlikely that I was positive since I have had no symptoms of the illness, nor have I had contact with anyone who has either tested positive for the virus or been sick.
"Since nearly every member of the U.S. Senate travels by plane across the country multiple times per week and attends lots of large gatherings, I believed my risk factor for exposure to the virus to be similar to that of my colleagues, especially since multiple congressional staffers on the Hill had already tested positive weeks ago.
"As for my attendance at the Speed Art Museum fundraiser on March 7, unlike the other Kentucky government officials there, I had zero contact or proximity with either of the two individuals who later announced they were positive for COVID-19. The event was a large affair of hundreds of people spread throughout the museum.
"There was an announcement by the Museum and Metro Louisville Communicable Disease department that "those who public health officials consider at higher risk from possible exposure are being notified." Louisville's health director put out a statement in The Courier Journal that "most of the people at the Speed Ball were at 'very minimal risk.'" I was not considered to be at risk since I never interacted with the two individuals even from a distance and was not recommended for testing by health officials.
"I believe we need more testing immediately, even among those without symptoms. The nature of COVID-19 put me -- and us all -- in a Catch-22 situation. I didn't fit the criteria for testing or quarantine. I had no symptoms and no specific encounter with a COVID-19 positive person. I had, however, traveled extensively in the U.S. and was required to continue doing so to vote in the Senate. That, together with the fact that I have a compromised lung, led me to seek testing. Despite my positive test result, I remain asymptomatic for COVID-19.
"For those who want to criticize me for lack of quarantine, realize that if the rules on testing had been followed to a tee, I would never have been tested and would still be walking around the halls of the Capitol. The current guidelines would not have called for me to get tested nor quarantined. It was my extra precaution, out of concern for my damaged lung, that led me to get tested.
"Perhaps it is too much to ask that we simply have compassion for our fellow Americans who are sick or fearful of becoming so. Thousands of people want testing. Many, like David Newman of The Walking Dead, are sick with flu symptoms and are being denied testing. This makes no sense.
"The broader the testing and the less finger-pointing we have, the better. America is strong. We are a resilient people, but we're stronger when we stand together."
Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish climate activist, announced on Tuesday that she and her father, Svante, had symptoms of Covid-19 and that while hers were mild, it was extremely likely that she had contracted the virus. She used the announcement to urge young people to stay at home, even if they dont feel sick, to protect those who are more vulnerable.
Many (especially young people) might not notice any symptoms at all, or very mild symptoms, she said on Instagram, where she has 10 million followers. Then they dont know they have the virus and can pass it on to people in risk groups.
We who dont belong to a risk group have an enormous responsibility, our actions can be the difference between life and death for many others, she said.
Ms. Thunberg spoke to European Union lawmakers at a meeting in Brussels in early March. In an effort to protect her mother and her sister at home in Stockholm, Ms. Thunberg said she and her father, who accompanies her on her travels, had isolated themselves in a separate apartment.
She said she had felt tired, had shivers, a sore throat and coughed. Her father, she said, felt far worse and had a fever. Sweden offers Covid-19 tests only to those who need urgent medical care, she wrote, which meant that she was not tested.
Ms. Thunbergs solo climate strikes helped fuel a global youth movement pressing world leaders to take action to slow down catastrophic climate change. For the last several weeks, the virus has compelled climate activists to take their protests off the streets and onto the internet.
In a crisis we change our behavior and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society, she said on Twitter in mid-March, urging climate protesters to post pictures of themselves online. She posted a picture of herself, with her two dogs, and her famous homemade sign that read, in Swedish, School Strike for the Climate.
On Tuesday, in her Instagram post, she urged young people to follow the advice from experts and your local authorities and #StayAtHome to slow the spread of the virus.
During todays White House coronavirus task force press conference, President Trump announced the launch of a new public/private consortium to unleash the power of American supercomputing resources. The members of this consortium are the White House, the Department of Energy and IBM . Other companies, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, as well as a number of academic institutions, are also contributing lots of different things, the president said.
While Trumps comments were characteristically unclear, IBM provided more details, noting that it is working with a number of national labs and other institutions to offer a total of 330 petaflops of compute to various projects in epidemiology, bioinformatics and molecular modeling. Amazon, Google and Microsoft are also part of the consortium, which is being led by IBM, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Department of Energy.
IBM and its partners will coordinate the efforts to evaluate proposals and provide access to high-performance computing resources to those that are most likely to have an immediate impact.
How can supercomputers help us fight this virus? These high-performance computing systems allow researchers to run very large numbers of calculations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling. These experiments would take years to complete if worked by hand, or months if handled on slower, traditional computing platforms, writes Dario Gil, IBMs Director of Research.
AWS has already dedicated $20 million to support COVID-19 research while Microsoft has already announced a number of different initiatives, though mostly around helping businesses cope with the fallout of this crisis. Google has now launched its own coronavirus website (though its very different from the one Trump once promised) and Alphabets Verily is helping Bay Area residents find testing sites if needed.
After todays announcement, the White House shared statements from Microsoft, Google and other partners. We know that high performance computing can reduce the time it takes to process massive data sets and perform complex simulations from days to hours, said Mike Daniels, Vice President, Global Public Sector at Google Cloud, in his statement. We look forward to participating in this initiative alongside leaders in technology, academia and the public sector to make more resources available to COVID-19 researchers and to apply Google Cloud computing capabilities toward the development of potential treatments and vaccines.
Similarly, Microsofts global head for its AI for Health Program, John Kahan, notes that Microsoft wants to make sure researchers working to combat COVID-19 have access to the tools they need by expanding access to its Azure cloud and by creating more opportunities for researchers to collaborate with the companys data scientists.
Today Im also announcing the launch of a new public/private consortium organized by the White House, the Department of Energy and IBM to unleash the power of American supercomputing resources to fight the Chinese virus, Trump, who continues to insist on calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, said in todays press briefing.
The following leaders from private industries, academia and government will be contributing and they are gonna be contributing a lot of different things, but compute primarily computing resources to help researchers discover new treatments and vaccine. They will be working along with NIH and all of the people working on this. But tremendous help from IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, MIT, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Department of Energys, the National Science Foundation and NASA. They are all contributing to this effort.
Update (4:45pm PT): we updated the post with statements from Google and Microsoft.
And they travel quickly, according to a study from the American Society for Microbiology. Researchers placed a sample of a harmless virus on a single doorknob or table-top in an office building. The first area that was contaminated was the coffee break room, says study researcher Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona. Within two to four hours, the virus could be detected on 40% to 60% of workers, visitors and commonly touched objects.
Poor hygiene from office workers can exacerbate to this, too: a 2019 UK survey showed that only 61% of UK office workers washed their hands properly with warm water and soap after going to the toilet.
A virus in the air
Dirty fingers and desks are one thing, but the biggest risk for the spread of virus is whats travelling through the air.
The great risk is not from the [office] building but from sick employees, says Dr Ali Khan, an epidemiologist and professor at the College of Public Health UNMC at the University of Nebraska. If one person is sick, he or she could spread the germs through coughing and sneezing, touching surfaces and contacting others closely. Even staying at their private desks, germs can also be spread by the flying droplets which settle on any surface and cause contamination.
The circulated air of offices can also contribute to the spread of microbes. Hewitt says that in indoor environments, microbial life is circulated through the air and within HVAC systems.
Maintenance of systems and filtration has an impact on how contaminants flow through the air, so buildings that have not been properly serviced to maintain appropriate circulation, filtration, humidity and temperatures can contribute to higher amounts of microorganisms moving through the systems, she says.
Just keep washing
The home offices in which so many of us are now working are more controlled environments with fewer people and fewer touched surfaces, says Lisa Ackerley, a chartered environmental health practitioner and deputy chair of International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene. You wont be surrounded by all of the shared places colleagues are touching or exposed to their droplets, nor will you have to be leery of their poor hygiene contributing to the spread.
But, if you head outside you can still bring the virus into your home while working remotely if youre not diligent. The virus cannot spontaneously grow in your home. It must be brought in by an infected human, says Khan. That means coming in contact with someone who is sick or touching an infected surface, then transferring it to your surfaces at home.
News Release
Monday, March 23, 2020
The National Institutes of Health will launch a website with important educational resources for coronavirus workers dealing with the spread of COVID-19.The initiative got underway after Congress passed a supplemental appropriation of $10 million on March 6 for worker-based training to prevent and reduce exposure of hospital employees, emergency first responders, and other workers who are at risk of exposure to coronavirus through their work duties. The law provided a total of $8.3 billion in emergency funding for certain federal agencies to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.
The worker-based training initiative is being led by NIHs National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which has a long-established Worker Training Program (WTP). The program awards grants for training and development of educational resources for employees in high risk occupations who serve the public during emergencies and who need skills to protect their own health as they are potentially exposed to dangerous pathogens, contaminated materials, or infected people. As a part of this effort the WTP also acts as a clearinghouse among grant recipients to broadly share the training and educational resources developed with the grant money.
Joseph Chip Hughes, who has led the NIEHS WTP for 31 years, said, These men and women are so dedicated and as they work so hard to serve and protect the public during this COVID-19 pandemic, I want to make sure they know how to protect their own health too. We dont need them getting sick, or taking the virus back to their families or their communities.
With this new supplemental funding from Congress, the NIEHS WTP is creating a COVID-19 virtual safety training initiative for frontline responders including emergency medical personnel, firefighters, law enforcement officers, environmental cleanup workers, high-risk custodial service workers, food processing and delivery workers, water and sewage treatment workers, sanitation workers, and health care facility employees.
The initial focus is to build a virtual safety training delivery platform in partnership with private sector e-learning companies with the capability to deliver synchronized just-in-time web-based training across the country in targeted high-risk industrial sectors. Additionally, a cadre of COVID-19 safety trainers and virtual safety advisors is being created to leverage the delivery of advanced training technology to frontline responders.
After learning of the special appropriation, NIEHS moved quickly to convene a national workshop in partnership with Emory Health Sciences Center on March 17. The workshop titled, Protecting Infectious Disease Responders During the COVID-19 Outbreak, used virtual meeting technology to bring together hundreds of the countrys infectious disease experts, nurses and health care providers, emergency response organizations and academic training centers to map out a web-based, technology-assisted training strategy to respond to the escalating need to ensure protections for COVID-19 responders, particularly in health care and emergency response services.
During a recent Congressional hearing on COVID-19 response, NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., testified that NIEHS has played a very critical role in training people who can deal with outbreaks. He noted the NIEHS WTP previously helped with the Ebola response.
NIEHS WTP grant recipients provided occupational safety training to workers during the anthrax attacks in 2001, the H5N1 outbreak in 2007, and the H1N1 avian influenza outbreak in 2009; mold remediation training following Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012; and Ebola virus disease preparedness training 2013-2015. A list of program grantees is available at https://www.niehs.nih.gov/careers/hazmat/awardees/index.cfm.
This COVID-19 virtual safety training program will be administered by NIEHS and was developed in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
About the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS): NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of the National Institutes of Health. For more information on NIEHS or environmental health topics, visit https://www.niehs.nih.govor subscribe to a news list.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery Into Health
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The world is now desperate to find ways to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus and to find effective treatments. As of Friday (March 20), 86 clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments or vaccines that are either ongoing or recruiting patients. New ones are being added every day, as the case count in the U.S. (and globally) skyrockets. The drugs being tested range from repurposed flu treatments to failed ebola drugs, to malaria treatments that were first developed decades ago. Here, we take a look at several of the treatments that doctors hope will help fight COVID-19.
A drug developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in Japan is showing promising outcomes in treating at least mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, Live Science previously reported.
The antiviral drug, called Favipiravir or Avigan, has been used in Japan to treat influenza, and last month, the drug was approved as an experimental treatment for COVID-19 infections, Pharmaceutical Technology reported.
So far, reports suggest the drug has been tested in 340 individuals in Wuhan and Shenzhen. "It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment," Zhang Xinmin, of China's science and technology ministry, said March 17, The Guardian reported.
The drug, which works by preventing certain viruses from replicating, seemed to shorten the duration of the virus as well as improve lung conditions (as seen in X-rays) in tested patients, though the research has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed science journal.
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but preliminary research in human and primate cells suggests that the drugs could effectively treat COVID-19.
A 2005 study found that chloroquine could quell the spread of SARS-CoV when applied to infected human cells in culture. SARS-CoV is closely related to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002. Chloroquine disrupts the ability of the SARS-CoV virus to enter and replicate in human cells, Live Science previously reported. The cell culture studies of SARS-CoV-2 revealed that the drug and its derivative hydroxychloroquine undermine the novel virus' replication in a similar way.
Doctors in China, South Korea, France and the U.S. are now giving the drug to some patients with COVID-19 with promising, albeit anecdotal, results so far. The FDA is organizing a formal clinical trial of the drug.
As of Feb. 23, seven clinical trials had been registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry to test whether COVID-19 infections could be treated with hydroxychloroquine. In addition, the University of Minnesota is studying whether taking hydroxychloroquine can protect people living with infected COVID-19 patients from catching the virus themselves.
In one heavily referenced study, conducted in France, a small number of patients with COVID-19 received either hydroxychloroquine alone or hydroxychloroquine in combination with an antibiotic called azithromycin. The authors reported that detectable concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 fell significantly faster in the study participants than coronavirus patients at other French hospitals who did not receive either drug. In six patients also given azithromycin, this promising effect appeared to be amplified.
However, the CDC noted that the small, non-randomized study "did not assess clinical benefit[s]" associated with the treatment; in other words, the study did not probe whether the treated patients were more likely to recover and survive their illness. Additionally, the agency advised that doctors should be cautious when giving either drug to patients with chronic disease, such as kidney failure, and especially those "who are receiving medications that might interact to cause arrhythmias."
A Gilead Sciences drug that was originally tested in people with Ebola, remdesivir, is being repurposed to see if it can effectively treat COVID-19.
The drug was found not to be effective in Ebola, but in lab studies, it has proven effective at inhibiting the growth of similar viruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In a petri dish, remdesivir can prevent human cells from becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, according to a letter published in the journal Nature in February.
The Food and Drug Administration has currently approved use of remdesivir for compassionate use, meaning only patients with severe COVID-19 disease can be approved for treatment. In other countries, requirements to receive remdesivir may be less stringent.
Five clinical trials in China and the U.S. are currently evaluating whether remdesevir can reduce complications or shorten the disease course in COVID-19 patients, the medical news site STAT reported.
Many doctors are excited about the drug's potential.
"There's only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy," Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization said last month, as reported by STAT. "And that's remdesivir."
George Thompson, an infectious disease specialist at UC Davis Medical Center who treated an early, severe case of COVID-19, told Science magazine that their patient got better after getting the drug, about 36 hours after diagnosis. The doctors initially thought the patient would die, Thompson said.
However, such anecdotal evidence can't demonstrate effectiveness, and the lab has yet to analyze blood samples to show that the patient's clinical improvement following the administration of remdesivir coincided with a drop in viral load (concentration of viral particles). On the flip side, a study posted to the preprint database medRXiv looked at three patients treated with remdesivir. The study, which was not peer-reviewed, found no clear time-dependent relationship between getting the drug and seeing improvements in symptoms. The patients also experienced rectal bleeding, elevated liver enzymes, vomiting and nausea, which could potentially be tied to the drug.
Another quandary is that antiviral drugs generally work better the earlier patients get them, but because remdesivir is not FDA-approved for general use, only patients with the most severe, and late-stage, disease, qualify for its use in clinical trials, Thompson told Science.
On Sunday (March 22), Gilead Sciences announced that they were temporarily halting compassionate use of remdesivir, due to "overwhelming demand." Instead, they are focusing on approving previously submitted requests and streamlining the process, while directing people to enroll in clinical trials, STAT reported.
The antiviral drug kaletra, a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, generated early excitement. However, new data from China, published March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine, could not detect a benefit when patients took the drug.
A total of 199 people with low oxygen levels were randomized to either receive kaletra or a placebo. While fewer people taking kaletra died, the difference was not statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to random chance. And both groups had similar levels of virus in their blood over time.
However, other studies are still ongoing, and there's still a possibility this combination could show some benefit. As with other antivirals, this drug would likely work better if given earlier in the disease course.
For some patients with COVID-19, the virus itself doesn't do the worst damage. Rather, in some people their immune system goes into overdrive and launches an all-out assault known as a cytokine storm. That immune overreaction can damage tissue and ultimately kill people.
To quiet such cytokine storms, doctors are now trying an immunosuppressant known as Actemra, or tocilizumab. The drug is approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It blocks a cell receptor that binds something called interleukin 6 (IL-6). IL-6 is a cytokine, or a type of protein released by the immune system, that can trigger dangerous inflammatory cascades.
On March 19, pharmaceutical company Roche announced that it was launching a trial to see if tocilizumab could improve outcomes in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. One group will receive the drug plus other standard treatments, while another group will receive a placebo, plus standard treatments.
Regeneron is enrolling patients in a clinical trial to test another IL-6 inhibitor, known as sarilumab (kevzara), for treating COVID-19 pneumonia. The logic behind using sarilumab is similar to that for tocilizumab.
Losartan is a generic blood-pressure medication that some scientists are hoping could help patients with COVID-19. The University of Minnesota has launched two clinical trials using the inexpensive, generic drug. The first would evaluate whether losartan can prevent multi-organ failure in those hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia. The second would evaluate if the drug can prevent hospitalizations in the first place, Reuters reported.
Losartan works by blocking a receptor, or doorway into cells that the chemical called angiotensin II uses to enter the cells and raise blood pressure. SARS-CoV-2 binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, and it's possible, the thinking goes, that because losartan might block those receptors, it may prevent the virus from infecting cells.
Complicating things, a paper published March 11 in the journal The Lancet has raised the possibility that common drugs for hypertension, such as ACE inhibitors and so-called angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), which includes losartan, might actually spur the body to make more ACE2, thereby increasing the ability of the virus to infiltrate cells. A recent study of 355 COVID-19 patients in Italy (study in Italian) found that three-quarters of the patients who died had hypertension, and the authors propose this is one reason for their increased susceptibility.
Originally published on Live Science.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already triggered a number of layoffs across industries, from travel companies to scooter startups. But, as a gray footnote to all tragedies, were starting to see innovation pop through the cracks and hopefully help some people, as well.
Back in November, Alexander Taub and Michael Schonfeld launched Upstream, a social media platform for professionals, to a small group of roughly 800 beta testers. The goal was to give folks a place to network and ask for introductions in a more digitally friendly, mobile-first platform than LinkedIn groups. The company counts Hunter Walk of Homebrew, Olivia Benjamin of Bain Capital Ventures and DArcy Coolican of Andreessen Horowitz as beta users. The plan was to launch publicly this summer.
However, as companies have cut staff, the co-founders are launching Upstream to the public earlier than expected, with a specific goal to discuss layoffs from COVID-19.
When the coronavirus hit, we were like, oh my god were gonna have crazy unemployment, Taub tells me. Its one thing to have a recession depression, but theres also going to be a zero demand curve because like, we cant go outside. So this is going to be bad.
As a result, Taub decided to double down on something he was already seeing happen organically on the platform: job hiring and role recommendations.
Once a user signs up to the platform, they can join the COVID-19 group. They can then choose what they want to post: looking to hire; looking for a job; or looking to help. Being able to only originate these three types of posts, noted Taub, is part of the reason Upstream is different from a Slack group or LinkedIn.
Once a note is posted, users can directly message other users in the group to follow up on a job posting or warm intro. When I asked Taub how hes preparing for a potential uptick in usage, he said that if this blows upwe will put up a gate to limit the amount of posts that go live each minute.
Other groups on the platform that are not yet open to the public include Jews in Tech, Business Development and Earlybirds.
Taub said he and Schonfeld launched Upstream with a view to focus on individuals in tech. But in recent months, Taub says hes noticed group members outside of tech have used it, including small business owners and teachers.
There has been little innovation in support for layoffs. Most layoff solutions exist in the form of job searching groups on Facebook, communities on Slack and even a plain-old spreadsheet that includes a list of people to hire. Taub is betting that people want a dedicated place to be more vulnerablebecause its a little uncomfortable asking for help on Facebook.
EDINBURG Hidalgo County announced three additional cases of the coronavirus in the county Tuesday.
According to a release from the county, two of the new cases appear to be travel-related and possibly related to the first case reported locally, a woman in her 20s who had traveled to Las Vegas and lives in McAllen.
No details were provided on the fifth person who tested positive, the statement read, and the county is in the preliminary stages of investigating that case.
The new cases bring the total number of positives in the county to five. Cameron County currently has six reported cases while Starr County has not reported any.
If you have news you would like to contribute, you can reach The Monitor at (956) 683-4000.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic highlights the critical need for rapid development of vaccines and antiviral treatments to reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by this dangerous new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The biopharmaceutical industry has quickly responded and at least 80 candidates are already in development. With good luck, we will eventually have some of the tools we need to fight this new global threat.
But there is an even larger threat lurking behind the current outbreak, one that is already killing hundreds of thousands of people around the world and that will complicate the care of many Covid-19 patients. It is the hidden threat from antibiotic resistance bacteria that are not killed by standard antibiotics. Unfortunately, the pipeline of drugs to manage these deadly infections is nearly dry.
Although antibiotic resistance havent gotten our attention in the same way that SARS-CoV-2 has, antibiotic-resistant bacteria present a growing global menace. In the U.S. alone, we see 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections each year and more than 35,000 deaths, though experts fear that the real number is much higher. The so-called superbugs that cause these infections thrive in hospitals and medical facilities, putting all patients whether theyre getting care for a minor illness or major surgery at risk.
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The patients at greatest risk from superbugs are the ones who are already more vulnerable to illness from viral lung infections like influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and Covid-19. The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, for example, claimed nearly 300,000 lives around the world. Many of those deaths between 29% and 55% were actually caused by secondary bacterial pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its a one-two punch: A virus can weaken the body, making it easier for complex, hard-to-treat bacteria to take hold.
The new coronavirus is no exception. Already, some studies have found that 1 in 7 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 has acquired a dangerous secondary bacterial infection, and 50% of patients who have died had such infections. The challenge of antibiotic resistance could become an enormous force of additional sickness and death across our health system as the toll of coronavirus pneumonia stretches critical care units beyond their capacity.
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Seventeen years ago, when I was leading the CDC, we worried about antibiotic resistance complicating the care of SARS patients. We knew then that Americas arsenal of antibiotics was not sufficient to guarantee we could manage a large outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria. Since then, these bacteria have only become more widespread, more deadly, and far more difficult to treat, yet our stable of antibiotics to manage them has barely increased. In fact, the gap between the superbug threats we face and the antibiotics we have to combat them is rapidly growing wider.
We cant predict when or where the next pandemic-triggering virus will emerge, but we can predict that secondary bacterial infections will follow. To fight these superbugs, we desperately need new antibiotics. An important question policymakers should be asking themselves is this: Why dont we have powerful antibiotics on hand when we need them the most?
In a perfect world, we would always have new antibiotics to fight emerging antibiotic-resistant infections, ready to use when a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic strikes. But developing new antibiotics takes time and can cost more than $1 billion and that investment cannot be recovered by wide use of new antibiotics because they must be used as sparingly as possible to preserve their effectiveness for as long as possible.
Current hospital reimbursement systems generally discourage use of new antibiotics, even when patients clearly need them, because they are more expensive than older antibiotics. Understandably, hospitals that are already challenged to cover the rising costs of care find it hard to justify the inclusion of more expensive drugs on their formularies.
As a result of this unique market dynamic low reimbursement and low-volume use many of our countrys most promising antibiotic developers have gone out of business or suffered severe financial losses, including three biotechnology companies within the last year.
This market failure must be corrected as if lives depend on it because they do as we may soon see as cases of Covid-19 increase. Reimbursement reform will both improve appropriate access to novel antibiotics and encourage private investment in the pipeline. While other proposals have been discussed, including stockpiling and further grant funding for research, these measures do not address the underlying issues.
Recognizing this need is critical, Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Reps. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and Kenny Marchant (R-Texas)have introduced the Developing an Innovative Strategy for Antimicrobial Resistant Microorganisms (DISARM) Act, a bipartisan bill that would reform Medicare reimbursement to make it easier for hospitals to use the antibiotic that is most appropriate for a patient. Right now, theres a strict cap on how much hospitals are reimbursed by Medicare for inpatient services, which deters use of new targeted antibiotics that might be the best course of therapy for patients with superbug infections.
Passing the DISARM Act is a first step we can take to help ensure that hospitals are not financially penalized when providing patients the lifesaving antibiotics they need. This is good for patients and will, in turn, sustain the confidence investors need to support companies developing new antibiotics. Policymakers must also create incentives, like market entry rewards and other pull mechanisms, that clearly signal to biopharmaceutical companies that the antibiotic pipeline merits ongoing research and development investment.
As we come together to fight todays Covid-19 crisis, we must also look ahead to the next one. We cannot be short-sighted, and we cannot be complacent, especially about antibiotic resistance. We must put measures in place to ensure that we have the antibiotics we need today and in the future. The time to act is now.
Julie L. Gerberding, M.D., is chief patient officer and executive vice president for strategic communications, global public policy, and population health at Merck. She was director of the CDC from 2002 to 2009.
