Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #110

[ifindedout]

Disorder causing dizziness, fainting now associated with COVID, study shows

An important new study shows COVID may be to blame for an increase in POTS, a neurologic disorder that causes dizziness or fainting upon standing.

www.ksat.com

Jennifer Ramey lived an extremely active life, running marathons, hiking mountains, and working as a cardiac nurse for 12 to 14-hour shifts.

Then in December 2020, she got COVID. Two months later, she had serious lingering symptoms and was diagnosed with long COVID.

“A lot of cognitive issues, a lot of blood pressure ups and downs, temperature changes,” Ramey said.

She ended up with a rare autoimmune disease that was combined with another condition called POTS, or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

 

[margarita25]

Chile detects first case of bird flu in a human

Chile detected the first case of bird flu in a human, the country's health ministry reported on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

China reports a third human case of the H3N8 strain of bird flu

A 56-year-old woman in Zhongshan tested positive after being exposed to live poultry. Authorities haven’t confirmed how she became infected but say the risk of transmission is low.

www.scmp.com

WS Thread:

Bird flu in humans

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-detects-first-case-bird-flu-human-2023-03-29/ SANTIAGO, March 29 (Reuters) - Chile detected the first case of bird flu in a human, the country's health ministry reported on Wednesday.

www.websleuths.com

 

[margarita25]

Equatorial Guinea confirms 13 Marburg cases after WHO comments

Equatorial Guinea has confirmed 13 cases of Marburg disease since the beginning of the epidemic, its health officials said on Wednesday after the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) urged the Central African country's government to report new cases officially.

www.reuters.com

 

[ifindedout]

More proof that China hid Covid as doctors say German had it in 2019

EXCLUSIVE: Was Covid spreading in Germany as early as 2019? New case report suggests a 71-year-old man had distinct signs of Covid on his lungs one day before China warned the world about the virus.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Medics from Charité–Universitätsmedizin re-examined his case now armed with the knowledge of tell-tale signs of Covid that might have been glossed over at the time.

They wanted to see whether the virus was circulating prior to Germany's first official case recorded in January.

The man, who wasn't identified, was admitted to hospital with pneumonia of an unknown cause on December 30, 2019.

He was in a 'poor' condition, with an elevated heart rate, blood pressure and a fever.

Medics noted he was overweight, a smoker, and had previously suffered a stroke.

But, critically, he had not been overseas recently, doctors wrote in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.

CT scans of his lungs indicated a potential viral infection of unknown origin, with tests for pathogens capable of causing pneumonia coming up negative.

 

[Cool Cats]

Long COVID and heart issues: What do we know about lingering symptoms — and treatment?​

Thu, March 30, 2023 at 12:53 PM EDT

Long COVID and heart issues: What do we know about lingering symptoms — and treatment?

“A COVID-19 infection can directly damage the heart,” Dr. Harlan Krumholz said.

www.yahoo.com

A college volleyball player with a racing heart came to see cardiologist Dr. Tamanna Singh in August 2020.
The athlete was also extremely tired, could no longer work out and compete in sports.

The athlete had an unusually high heart rate and would get palpitations just by walking from one room to the next, Singh, the co-director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Sports Cardiology Center, told McClatchy News in an interview.

She was the first long COVID patient Singh saw. She says she’s seen hundreds since.

Singh put her through rigorous cardiac testing — primarily to ensure she wasn’t at an increased risk of sudden cardiac death while playing sports or after — and nothing out of the ordinary was noticed, according to Singh.

Singh says there could be more than 200 post-COVID symptoms. The most common ones Singh sees include heart palpitations or racing sensations, chest pains, difficulty exercising, shortness of breath, dizziness and lightheadedness.

 

[Lilibet]

Long COVID and heart issues: What do we know about lingering symptoms — and treatment?​

Thu, March 30, 2023 at 12:53 PM EDT

Long COVID and heart issues: What do we know about lingering symptoms — and treatment?

“A COVID-19 infection can directly damage the heart,” Dr. Harlan Krumholz said.

www.yahoo.com

A college volleyball player with a racing heart came to see cardiologist Dr. Tamanna Singh in August 2020.
The athlete was also extremely tired, could no longer work out and compete in sports.

The athlete had an unusually high heart rate and would get palpitations just by walking from one room to the next, Singh, the co-director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Sports Cardiology Center, told McClatchy News in an interview.

She was the first long COVID patient Singh saw. She says she’s seen hundreds since.

Singh put her through rigorous cardiac testing — primarily to ensure she wasn’t at an increased risk of sudden cardiac death while playing sports or after — and nothing out of the ordinary was noticed, according to Singh.

Singh says there could be more than 200 post-COVID symptoms. The most common ones Singh sees include heart palpitations or racing sensations, chest pains, difficulty exercising, shortness of breath, dizziness and lightheadedness.

I’m watching this covid/heart connection closely. I was hospitalized with shortness of breath and diagnosed with congestive heart failure a year after being hospitalized with covid. My cardiologist said “it’s hard to say” whether there’s a covid connection, but I do wonder. Not that it matters that much. And to my knowledge I don’t have long covid. Being tired is sort of my 77 year old normal.

 

[Cool Cats]

• Lilibet
• Are you doing better now? I remember you had some covid heart issues and I hope you are doing well!

I wrote this at the same time as you posted above!!!!

Thanks!!!!! Thinking of you...

 

[Lilibet]

• Lilibet
• Are you doing better now? I remember you had some long covid heart issues and I hope you are doing well!

Thanks! I actually recovered nicely from the covid pneumonia and never felt I had the extreme issues of long covid. The heart issue popped up suddenly a year later and made me wonder about a covid connection. Other than one new Rx and limiting salt, I feel well enough. I’d like to lose weight and walk more, but mobility issues limit me, so I feel older than 77. I’m hoping to resolve some of that soonish.

 

[weepingangel]

For long Covid patients who lost their taste or smell, a new treatment offers hope

Is it 'voodoo' or does a procedure called a stellate ganglion block help patients with long Covid-related loss of smell or taste?

www.nbcnews.com

 

[weepingangel]

Diabetes drug metformin prevents long COVID-19, study finds

Treatment with metformin during initial infection prevented Long COVID-19 in up to half of cases.

www.cleveland.com

 

[anneg]

Diabetes drug metformin prevents long COVID-19, study finds

Treatment with metformin during initial infection prevented Long COVID-19 in up to half of cases.

www.cleveland.com

Interesting and promising! And a cheap drug, too.

 

[ifindedout]

XBB.1.16

'Everyone is kind of tired and has given up' on COVID. But this new variant is 'one to watch,' the WHO says

Here’s what we know so far about the latest variant to raise eyebrows—and the first to do so in several months.

fortune.com

XBB.1.16, dubbed “Arcturus” by variant trackers, is very similar to U.S. dominant “Kraken” XBB.1.5—the most transmissible COVID variant yet, Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead for the WHO, said earlier this week at a news conference.

But additional mutations in the virus’s spike protein, which attaches to and infects human cells, has the potential to make the variant more infectious and even cause more severe disease. For this reason, and due to rising cases in the East, XBB.1.16 is considered “one to watch,” Van Kerkhove says.

edited to italicize

 

[Cool Cats]

Video shows woman crying as she smells coffee for the first time in 2 years — thanks to an injection to treat her long COVID​

Video shows woman crying as she smells coffee for the first time in 2 years — thanks to an injection to treat her long COVID

After catching COVID, chicken tasted like rotten flesh for Jennifer Henderson and she couldn't smell her perfumes, flowers, or her husband's aftershave.

www.yahoo.com

Jennifer Henderson, 54, from Cincinnati, Ohio contracted COVID in January 2021 and experienced headaches, fatigue, and a loss of taste and smell, she told Cleveland Clinic.

While most of her symptoms subsided after a week, her inability to taste or smell remained. After nine months, they came back, but distorted so that things didn't taste or smell as they should.

Bananas tasted metallic, garlic tasted like gasoline, chicken tasted like rotten flesh, known as dysgeusia, and she couldn't smell her perfumes, flowers, or her husband's aftershave, known as parosmia.

After coming across a Facebook support group for people suffering from the same symptoms, Henderson learned of a treatment used for pain management called a stellate ganglion block, which had been used to improve smell and taste for long COVID sufferers.

SGB is a series of injections of local anesthetic into the nervous system that is believed to stop it from contributing to long COVID symptoms, according to Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Christina Shin, a pain medicine specialist who treated Henderson, said: "There is a connection between our nervous system and immune system. Some propose patients with long COVID are suffering from persistent overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system or inflammation of their nervous system."

Referring to a collection of nerves at the front of the neck, she said: "By injecting local anesthetic and temporarily blocking neuronal activity at the stellate ganglion, we may be disrupting this abnormal feedback loop."

Henderson has had two more injections since and found that she's seen improvements in both taste and smell each time, including being able to smell her favorite perfumes once again.

 

[weepingangel]

Researchers Find an Antibody that Targets Omicron and Other SARS-CoV-2 Variants

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including omicron, the most recent.

news.weill.cornell.edu

 

[Gemmie]

Researchers Find an Antibody that Targets Omicron and Other SARS-CoV-2 Variants

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including omicron, the most recent.

news.weill.cornell.edu

This is great news!

In a study published March 6 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues tested antibodies derived from patient blood samples against successive versions of the virus that emerged during the pandemic. One of these proteins, dubbed S728-1157, proved highly effective at neutralizing not only older variants but also seven subtypes of omicron.

I do wish they wouldn't test on animals though (hamsters were mentioned in the article). We're not hamsters! This likely won't be popular but I'd prefer testing on prisoners (ETA - or volunteers. My mother has volunteered for a lot of medical trials). They're at least human (so it's apples to apples). Well, at least some of them are human... some are inhuman.

From your post: Researchers Find an Antibody that Targets Omicron and Other SARS-CoV-2 Variants

 

[Sundog]

This likely won't be popular but I'd prefer testing on prisoners (ETA - or volunteers. My mother has volunteered for a lot of medical trials). They're at least human (so it's apples to apples). Well, at least some of them are human... some are inhuman.

<snipped for focus>

Testing on prisoners would be highly unethical.

Informed volunteers would work, but prisoners could never be considered as "volunteers."

 

[Grouse]

Testing on prisoners would be highly unethical.

Indeed. I was rather shocked to see that on WS tbh.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

F.D.A. Authorizes Another Covid Booster Shot for People Over 65

Seniors and people with compromised immune systems may get a second bivalent booster if at least four months have passed since their last one.

www.nytimes.com

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved an additional round of bivalent booster shots for adults who are 65 and over as well as people with compromised immune systems. The effort is to ensure ongoing protection against Covid, which is still claiming more than 1,300 lives each week.

The bivalent shots target Omicron variants of the coronavirus. The agency said people who are 65 and older who have not had a bivalent booster shot in at least four months may get another one. For those who are immunocompromised, additional doses of the bivalent vaccine can be given two months after the last shot. Those who are unvaccinated can get a single dose of the bivalent booster, the agency said.

“Covid-19 continues to be a very real risk for many people,” Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A. vaccine chief, said. “The available data continue to demonstrate that vaccines prevent the most serious outcomes of Covid-19, which are severe illness, hospitalization and death.”...

 

[anneg]

F.D.A. Authorizes Another Covid Booster Shot for People Over 65

Seniors and people with compromised immune systems may get a second bivalent booster if at least four months have passed since their last one.

www.nytimes.com

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved an additional round of bivalent booster shots for adults who are 65 and over as well as people with compromised immune systems. The effort is to ensure ongoing protection against Covid, which is still claiming more than 1,300 lives each week.

The bivalent shots target Omicron variants of the coronavirus. The agency said people who are 65 and older who have not had a bivalent booster shot in at least four months may get another one. For those who are immunocompromised, additional doses of the bivalent vaccine can be given two months after the last shot. Those who are unvaccinated can get a single dose of the bivalent booster, the agency said.

“Covid-19 continues to be a very real risk for many people,” Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A. vaccine chief, said. “The available data continue to demonstrate that vaccines prevent the most serious outcomes of Covid-19, which are severe illness, hospitalization and death.”...

Thanks! I had the bivalent vaccine last September, so I can get my next shot anytime. My immunity may still be pretty high since I had Covid at the end of December, but I'll get another shot before summer.

 

[Gemmie]

Thanks! I had the bivalent vaccine last September, so I can get my next shot anytime. My immunity may still be pretty high since I had Covid at the end of December, but I'll get another shot before summer.

Once the CDC has signed off on it. Likely this week but not yet.

As with previous changes, vaccinators can administer doses only after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues updated recommendations. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is expected to sign off on these changes this week.

FDA clears second bivalent COVID boosters for some Americans

The CDC's outside vaccine advisers will meet Wednesday to discuss the shots.

www.cbsnews.com