MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The ability of two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to protect against symptomatic infection by the Omicron variant falls significantly short, but a booster shot provides considerable protection, according to the first real-world study of how effective vaccines are against the rapidly spreading new form ofContinue Reading
MONDAY, Dec. 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Long COVID can be tough to diagnose in children, but there are a number of things to look for. “Many children don’t have any symptoms when they have a COVID infection,” said Dr. Sindhu Mohandas, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and attending physicianContinue Reading
SATURDAY, Dec. 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Fever-related seizures in young children can be alarming for parents, but they’re usually not life-threatening, an expert says. During a so-called febrile seizure, a child may lose consciousness, experience body stiffness and have full-body shaking. The seizures — which typically last a minuteContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Dec. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The Omicron variant could prompt a reshuffling of the way doctors treat COVID infections in the United States, and antiviral pills will likely lead the way in that redoubled effort, Harvard experts say. New antiviral pills developed by Merck and Pfizer are expectedContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Dec. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Cutting-edge mRNA technology brought safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines to a world in crisis — could it do the same for a much older foe, HIV? An experimental HIV vaccine that uses the same mRNA platform technology as the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccinesContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Dec. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) — U.S. operating rooms got busy once again soon after the first round of pandemic shutdowns, according to a study that challenges the widely held belief that operations have been curtailed indefinitely during the age of COVID-19. “It’s an untold story,” said senior studyContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Dec. 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) — What do all the microbes living rent-free in your gut have to do with disease risk? Perhaps a lot. A groundbreaking analysis of decades-old stool and blood samples from the early AIDS epidemic suggests that men who had high levels of inflammation-causing bacteriaContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Dec. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Shortness of breath in people with “long COVID” might not just be about the lungs — it may indicate heart damage from the disease, new research suggests. “The findings could help to explain why some patients with long COVID still experience breathlessness oneContinue Reading
THURSDAY, Dec. 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Regular physical activity has all sorts of benefits, and now researchers say it may help ward off serious pneumonia. Until now, it wasn’t clear how exercise affected the risk of pneumonia, an infection of the lung tissue usually caused by bacteria or viruses.Continue Reading
THURSDAY, Dec. 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Public health experts have long recommended getting a seasonal flu shot, but a new study suggests there’s hesitancy about that vaccine, too. Physicians and pharmacists can play a key role in flu shot uptake, the research shows. Only about 44% of people whoContinue Reading