WEDNESDAY, Dec. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The Omicron variant is spreading rapidly in the United States and could trigger a huge wave of COVID infections as early as January, federal health officials said Tuesday. In just one week there was a sevenfold spike in the highly contagious variant’s presenceContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) — When it comes to fending off new viruses, baby has Mom and Dad beat. An infant’s immune system is better than an adult’s at combating new viruses, researchers say. Compared to adults, babies get a lot of viral respiratory infections, but babies areContinue Reading
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) — COVID-19 vaccination provides far less protection to people with multiple myeloma than to survivors of other types of cancer, new research shows. The findings highlight the need for multiple myeloma patients “to be especially careful — to take social distancing seriously and utilizeContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Synthetic forms of the potentially lethal opioid fentanyl are flooding the illicit drug market, leaving a soaring number of fatal overdoses in their wake, a new U.S. report finds. The latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds thatContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Compared to previous coronavirus variants, Omicron appears to cause less severe illness, but is more resistant to the Pfizer vaccine, researchers at South Africa’s largest health insurer report. The team at Discovery Health analyzed 211,000 positive coronavirus cases during the country’s fourth wave,Continue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pfizer Inc. announced Tuesday that a final analysis shows its experimental antiviral pill Paxlovid sharply reduced hospitalizations and deaths among people at high risk for severe illness. The latest results, which reinforce an earlier analysis released in November, show that Pfizer’s drug cutContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pandemic lockdowns may have led fewer Americans to seek pain treatment last year, but folks who did seek help had higher-than-usual odds of receiving dangerous opioid painkillers, a new study says. And that could lead to a worsening of the opioid epidemic, researchersContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A statewide indoor mask mandate will be reintroduced in California on Wednesday and last one month, officials in America’s largest state said Monday. “To ensure that we collectively protect the health and well-being of all Californians; keep schools open for in-person instruction; andContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Dec. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) — For certain leukemia patients, some welcome findings: New research confirms long remissions after treatment with the drug ibrutinib and chemotherapy. The study involved 85 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). All were 65 or younger, and 46 had more aggressive, unmutated IGHV subtypeContinue Reading
MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The COVID-19 death toll in the United States reached 800,000 on Monday, and one expert believes it will likely hit 1 million at some point in 2022. The 800,156 confirmed deaths in the nearly two years since the first known U.S. victims ofContinue Reading