Reuters Health News Summary


Reuters | Updated: 23-05-2020 10:28 IST | Created: 23-05-2020 10:28 IST
Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Exclusive: Russian ventilators reached U.S. states without FDA oversight

Russian-made ventilators now under investigation for causing deaths in Russia were not authorized by U.S. health regulators before the same model was sent to New York and New Jersey at the height of their coronavirus outbreaks, Reuters has learned. The 45 Aventa-M ventilators were sent to the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the shipment in a March 30 phone call. The equipment was received by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officers in New York on April 1st. Thailand reports three new coronavirus cases, no new deaths

Thailand on Saturday reported three new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, bringing the country's total to 3,040 confirmed cases and 56 fatalities since the outbreak started in January. The new cases are two Thai nationals recently returned from overseas and under quarantine and a 49-year-old Italian man living in Phuket, said Panprapa Yongtrakul, a spokeswoman for the government's coronavirus task force. Donated plasma benefits COVID-19 patients in small U.S. study

Patients with severe COVID-19 given plasma from someone who recovered from the disease were more likely to stabilize or need less oxygen support than other similar hospital patients, according to results of a small U.S. study released on Friday. The study showed a trend toward better survival rates, but the number of patients was small and the results cannot be interpreted as applying to patients on mechanical ventilators, researchers at New York's Mt. Sinai Medical Center said. NIH trial: Gilead's drug works best in COVID patients on oxygen

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Friday said that data from its trial of Gilead Sciences Inc's remdesivir show that the drug offers the most benefit for COVID-19 patients who need extra oxygen but do not require mechanical ventilation. The peer-reviewed data was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Drug touted by Trump to treat COVID-19 linked to higher death risk: study

The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he has been taking and has urged others to use, was tied to an increased risk of death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, a large study published on Friday showed. In the study https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140673620311806 that looked at more than 96,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, those treated with hydroxychloroquine or the related chloroquine had higher risk of death and heart rhythm problems than patients who were not given the medicines. Coronavirus vaccine safe in early trial, hydroxychloroquine may increase death risk

The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Coronavirus vaccine appears safe in first-in-human trial Argentina hits 10,000 coronavirus cases, outpaced by LatAm neighbors

Argentina surpassed 10,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus on Friday, after recording the highest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic. There are 10,649 cases, up by 718 from a day earlier, mostly in capital Buenos Aires, government data showed. The death toll is at 433. Beyond politics, gold-standard COVID-19 trials test malaria drug taken by Trump

In the fight against COVID-19, the decades-old anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine has become a political football, with U.S. President Donald Trump personally taking it and hailing it as a "game changer," to the derision of critics. Some studies already have been done on hydroxychloroquine and the closely related chloroquine, including one published on Friday showing a higher risk of death and heart rhythm problems for coronavirus patients who used them compared to those who did not. But doctors are waiting for the debate about the usefulness of these drugs for COVID-19 to be settled by gold-standard scientific trials, with some results due as soon as next week. China reports no new coronavirus cases for first time since pandemic began

China recorded no new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland for May 22, the first time it had seen no daily rise in the number of cases since the pandemic began in the central city of Wuhan late last year. The National Health Commission (NHC) said in a statement on Saturday that this compared to four new cases on the previous day. It said, however, there were two new suspected cases: an imported one in Shanghai and locally transmitted case in the northeastern province of Jilin. Exclusive: U.S. plans massive coronavirus vaccine testing effort to meet year-end deadline

The United States plans a massive testing effort involving more than 100,000 volunteers and a half dozen or so of the most promising vaccine candidates in an effort to deliver a safe and effective one by the end of 2020, scientists leading the program told Reuters. The project will compress what is typically 10 years of vaccine development and testing into a matter of months, testimony to the urgency to halt a pandemic that has infected more than 5 million people, killed over 335,000 and battered economies worldwide.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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