Chinese Covid-19 vaccines offer relatively low levels of protection compared with some of their foreign rivals. Here is why China is joining other countries in considering mixing and matching vaccines as a key to overcoming multiple vaccination challenges at once. Illustration: Ksenia Shaikhutdinova
Category Archives: Health
Analysis: The High Costs Of Air Pollution In The U.S.
Air pollution still remains one of the key environmental issues in the United States. Although it has seen incredible improvement since the 1970s, more than 4 in 10 Americans are still estimated to live in counties with poor air quality. Every year, air pollution kills more than 6 million people worldwide from heart attacks, stroke and diabetes. So just how clean is the air we breathe in the U.S.?
Global Health Essays: ‘The Politics Of Stopping Pandemics’ (New Yorker)
He identifies a cluster of non-medical drivers of deadly outbreaks—war, political instability, human migration, poverty, urbanization, anti-science and nationalist sentiment, and climate change—and maintains that advances in biomedicine must be accompanied by concerted action on these geopolitical matters.
War and Pestilence ride together as two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and there is no shortage of historical precedent to demonstrate the aptness of the allegory. The great influenza pandemic that began in 1918 was propelled, in part, by troop movements and population shifts at the end of the First World War. Both the First and the Second World Wars produced typhus epidemics. Armed conflicts cause malnutrition, poor pest control, and sanitation problems; even the soil often becomes contaminated. Medical facilities are destroyed; doctors and nurses, diverted to combat duty, are unable to provide care, and vaccination and other mass-treatment programs usually falter.
Infographic: Developing The New ‘Dream Vaccine’
Covid-19: Latest Research On Vaccine Side-Effects
The risk of dying from COVID is much higher than getting a blood clot from a vaccine. But even more concerning is a new report from Oxford University that shows catching the coronavirus puts you at even more risk of a deadly blood clot. Each delay puts more lives at risk, as the coronavirus spreads. It’s a balancing act between speed and caution in the fight against COVID-19.
Mayo Clinic Heart Health: ‘What Is Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy? ‘ (Video)
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a thickening of the heart muscle, making it more difficult to pump blood. Dr. Steve Ommen is a Mayo Clinic cardiologist who specializes in the disease. He says shortness of breath or chest pain, especially during exercise, are common symptoms. Many people with the disease won’t have any significant health problems. But there are cases that require treatment. If a patient has symptoms that affect quality of life, the disease is treated with medications. Surgery or other procedures also may be necessary in some cases.
Infographic: ‘The Many Ways To Thwart Viruses’
Covid-19: Why ‘Johnson & Johnson Vaccine’ Was ‘Paused’ In U.S. & Europe
The rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been paused in the US, Europe and South Africa after reports of rare blood clotting in a very small number of people. Health authorities said they were halting the use of the shot while they investigate the cases — and that they were doing this out of “an abundance of caution.” The Astra Zeneca jab was also recently temporarily suspended in some countries after being linked to rare blood clots. Authorities are calling it a short “pause.” The US’s Johnson and Johnson vaccine has hit the same stumbling block as the UK’s AstraZeneca jab did last month: a likely link to a rare and deadly blood clot. Use of Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine has now been halted across the US, Europe and South Africa, with health authorities investigating six incidents of clotting in younger women, one of them fatal. The US-developed vaccine uses an adenovirus to trigger immunity – the same mechanism as the UK’s AstraZeneca vaccine. It accounts for roughly 5 percent of vaccines delivered so far in the US. This is a setback to Europe, too. Johnson and Johnson announced it will delay it’s rollout on the continent. The company had already started processing an order from the EU of 200 million doses. The Janssen jab has been partially rolled out in Africa, where a majority of countries don’t have enough vaccines even for their healthcare workers. The African Union signed a deal for 220 million doses this year. But US authorities remain hopeful. They’re saying it could only be a matter of days before the rollout resumes.
Covid-19 Infographics: How mRNA Vaccines Work
Healthcare: Older Adults Prefer Convenience Over Reputation In Physicians
A new study by a team from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation shows that adults over age 50 place more importance on convenience-related factors, rather than reputation, when choosing a doctor.
The study, based on data from IHPI’s National Poll on Healthy Aging supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, still shows that online ratings and reviews of physicians play an important role, and should receive attention from providers and policymakers.
Dr. Jeffrey Kullgren, a U-M primary care physician and lead author of the study, describes the findings.
