Placentas from COVID-19-positive pregnant women show injury

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

The placentas from 16 women who tested positive for COVID-19 while pregnant showed evidence of injury, according to pathological exams completed directly following birth, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

The type of injury seen in the placentas shows abnormal blood flow between the mothers and their babies in utero, pointing to a new complication of COVID-19. The findings, though early, could help inform how pregnant women should be clinically monitored during the pandemic.

The study was published today (May 22) in the journal American Journal of Clinical Pathology. It is the largest study to examine the health of placentas in women who tested positive for COVID-19.

“Most of these babies were delivered full-term after otherwise normal pregnancies, so you wouldn’t expect to find anything wrong with the placentas, but this virus appears to be inducing some injury in the placenta,” said senior author Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein, assistant professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine pathologist. “It doesn’t appear to be inducing negative outcomes in live-born infants, based on our limited data, but it does validate the idea that women with COVID should be monitored more closely.”

This increased monitoring might come in the form of non-stress tests, which examine how well the placenta is delivering oxygen, or growth ultrasounds, which measure if the baby is growing at a healthy rate, said co-author Dr. Emily Miller, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Feinberg and a Northwestern Medicine obstetrician.

“Not to paint a scary picture, but these findings worry me,” Miller said. “I don’t want to draw sweeping conclusions from a small study, but this preliminary glimpse into how COVID-19 might cause changes in the placenta carries some pretty significant implications for the health of a pregnancy. We must discuss whether we should change how we monitor pregnant women right now.”

Previous research has found that children who were in utero during the 1918-19 flu pandemic, which is often compared to the current COVID-19 pandemic, have lifelong lower incomes and higher rates of cardiovascular disease. Flu doesn’t cross the placenta, Goldstein said, so whatever is causing life-long problems in those people is most likely due to immune activity and injury to the placenta.

“Our study, and other studies like it, are trying to get on the ground floor for this exposure so we can think about what research questions we should be asking in these kids and what can or should we do now to mitigate these same types of outcomes,” Goldstein said.

Fifteen patients delivered live infants in the third trimester, however one patient had a miscarriage in the second trimester. “That patient was asymptomatic, so we don’t know whether the virus caused the miscarriage or it was unrelated,” Goldstein said, “We are aware of four other cases of miscarriage with COVID. The other reported patients had symptoms and three of four had severe inflammation in the placenta. I’d like to see more before drawing any conclusions.”

The placenta is the first organ to form in fetal development. It acts as the fetus’ lungs, gut, kidneys and liver, taking oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s blood stream and exchanging waste. The placenta also is responsible for many of the hormonal changes within the mother’s body. Examining a woman’s placenta allows a pathologist to follow a retroactive roadmap of a woman’s pregnancy to learn what happened to the baby in utero or what could happen to both the mother and the infant after birth.

“The placenta acts like a ventilator for the fetus, and if it gets damaged, there can be dire outcomes,” Miller said. “In this very limited study, these findings provide some signs that the ventilator might not work as well for as long as we’d like it to if the mother tests positive for SARS-CoV2.”

The placentas in these patients had two common abnormalities: insufficient blood flow from the mother to the fetus with abnormal blood vessels called maternal vascular malperfusion (MVM) and blood clots in the placenta, called intervillous thrombi.

In normal cases of MVM, the mother’s blood pressure is higher than normal. This condition is typically seen in women with preeclampsia or hypertension. Interestingly, only one of the 15 patients in this study had preeclampsia or hypertension.

“There is an emerging consensus that there are problems with coagulation and blood vessel injury in COVID-19 patients,” Goldstein said. “Our finding support that there might be something clot-forming about coronavirus, and it’s happening in the placenta.”

The 16 women in the study delivered their babies at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital. All tested positive for COVID-19. Four patients came in with flu-like symptoms three to five weeks before delivery and tested positive for the virus. The remaining patients all tested positive when they came in to deliver. Five patients never developed symptoms, others were symptomatic at delivery.

Between 30 and 40 patients deliver at Prentice daily. The team began testing placentas of COVID-19-positive mothers in early April. Fourteen of the live-born infants in the study were born full term and with normal weights and Apgar scores. One live-born infant was premature.

“They were healthy, full-term, beautifully normal babies, but our findings indicate a lot of the blood flow was blocked off and many of the placentas were smaller than they should have been,” Miller said. “Placentas get built with an enormous amount of redundancy. Even with only half of it working, babies are often completely fine. Still, while most babies will be fine, there’s a risk that some pregnancies could be compromised.”

In February, before the pandemic was known to have reached Chicago, Goldstein assembled his research team.

“If you get the flu and you’re pregnant, we know nothing about what that looks like in your placenta, so I began thinking how we’d study this flu-like epidemic if it came through Chicago,” Goldstein said. “We started setting things up and then lo and behold, the epidemic came here, so we were ready.”

Other Northwestern co-authors include Elisheva D. Shanes, Leena B. Mithal and Hooman A. Azad.

Self-Accountability

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

Using an accountability buddy to help you consistently stick with a habit or work on a goal is fine as a temporary measure to get yourself into the flow of action, but it’s also a crutch.

Ultimately you want to be accountable to yourself first and foremost, not to a buddy, team, company, organization, app, or external entity.

That may sound counter-intuitive, especially if you’re accustomed to external accountability.

External factors can increase your sense of accountability because you don’t want to let other people down. You want to do your part to pitch in. That’s understandable.

But externals don’t last. At some point you’ll move on from the school, team, company, boss, parents, or situation that provides your accountability. Then what? Find another external group to hold you accountable? Accountable to what? Their goals or yours?

Being accountable to others often adds extra busywork too. You may need to do extra paperwork or reports to prove your efforts to someone else. Bosses do performance evaluation. Teachers dole out assignments and tests. Concerned parents check up on you. When you’re accountable to yourself, you can track your own data when you find that beneficial, but you needn’t bother with extra reporting to convince others of your standards.

In the long run, I think you’ll find the payoff better if you invest most deeply in self-accountability. You always have yourself, so your inner accountability buddy is with you 24/7 for life.

I like holding myself accountable to my future self. I know that I’ll be my future self someday, so my loyalty is to him. I want to build him up with good habits that enhance his life. I want to complete projects he can look back upon and feel proud of. I feel grateful that my past self put me in a strong position because of his many efforts, and I know my future self will feel the same about my efforts today.

Can you still hold yourself accountable for doing your personal “shoulds” when no one is looking? When no one would know or care, can you still push yourself? Can you go the extra mile when you’re the only one to hold yourself accountable?

It’s fine to add the benefits of external accountability on top of personal accountability. Working with a strong team can be super motivating. But be wary of substituting external accountability for internal accountability. Don’t lean so much on the externals that you let your inner fire atrophy.

If the team goes away, if you lose your job, if the external accountability drops off, do you still maintain strong discipline? Or does the structure of your life fall apart when it’s just you alone and no one is watching?

I struggled with this for a long time in the past, leaning too much on externals for accountability. When strict structures went away, my life crumbled from lack of discipline. I was accountable to no one, not even myself. I got in enough trouble that the courts intervened to hold me accountable, sentencing me to dozens of hours of community service. I ultimately concluded that was no way to live and began the struggle of trying to hold myself to a higher personal standard.

That was not an easy path by any means, but I do feel it’s been stronger than relying on externals to push me. It feels better to push myself because then it’s a choice, and I can be sure to push myself in purposeful ways that makes sense to me. My orders to myself are meaningful, carefully chosen, and aligned with my values. I don’t have to deal with ill-considered commands from elsewhere.

Personal accountability also enabled me to stretch into areas where no one else was directing me to go. I didn’t go vegetarian and then vegan because of external pressures. I chose it and committed. I didn’t do so many personal growth experiments because of external accountability, even when I blogged about them. I can still do private 30-day challenges and feel just as accountable, even when there’s no public eye watching me.

No accountability buddy got me out of bed at 4:30 this morning. No one pushed me to run for an hour, then do yoga. No one is telling me to get my work done today. No one will achieve my goals for me.

Again, it’s okay to lean on external accountability to get yourself into motion sometimes, but don’t let your personal accountability languish from lack of investment. Personal accountability is more reliable and consistent than external accountability, but it takes more practice to build.

Even when you’re doing something service-oriented, the internal accountability can come from the effect it has on your character. Fall in love with the inner rewards of being a kind, generous, and compassionate character. Do you want to embody such a character? If so, then hold yourself accountable to behaving in alignment with that character. Look into a mirror, and see what the guy in the glass has to say.

Do you want to spend your whole life being driven by carrots and sticks from other people? Or do you want to empower yourself to build a strong, self-accountable character who can do your should-dos without whining, complaining, or external rewards and punishments?

Coronavirus: Schoolchildren’s risks of catching and spreading the disease

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

Children appear to be at low risk from the disease, but are they spreading it?

Coronavirus: Children half as likely to catch it, review finds

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

The findings will feed into the debate around the safety of re-opening schools.

Health24.com | Keto diet might change your gut in more ways than one

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

The now-trendy keto diet is said to turn fat into fuel. But a new, small study says it may also change the vast array of microbes residing in your gut (the microbiome).

That could be a good thing, as those changes may ultimately strengthen the immune system by tamping down inflammation, researchers say.

The keto diet, which severely restricts carbohydrates and emphasises fats and protein, has been touted as a way to rein in epilepsy, diabetes and expanding waistlines. Yet despite rising popularity, it remains controversial, and much is unknown about its true impact on health.

The new finding follows a two-month study that tracked diet-related shifts in microbiome content among 17 overweight or obese men, with follow-up tests in mice.

Changes to gut microbes

“There has been a lot of work on ketogenic diets,” noted study author Peter Turnbaugh, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco.

“But we didn’t know much about how these diets differ from other high-fat diets, how exactly they impact microbes, or whether or not these diet-induced changes to gut microbes matter,” he said.

To find out, Turnbaugh and his colleagues first placed half the men on a one-month “standard” Western diet composed of 50% carbs, 15% protein and 35% fat.

The other half started off on a keto diet made up of 5% carbs, 15% protein and 80% fat. After a month the two groups switched.

Stool sample analyses revealed that when participants switched over to a keto diet they experienced “significant shifts” in levels of 19 bacterial “families.”

The researchers then extracted microbial samples from the guts of the keto group and inserted them into the guts of mice. The result: a drop in levels of a critical infection-fighting cell that’s also known to promote inflammation in autoimmune diseases.

Levels that promote ketones

The mice were then exposed to low-fat, high-fat and low-carb keto diet options, with fat content respectively rising from 12% to 75% to 90%. And those results were surprising on several levels, Turnbaugh said.

For one, gut microbe levels driven up by a relatively high-fat diet were actually driven down by the low-carb keto diet, and vice versa.

This suggests the microbiome responds differently as dietary fat increases to levels that promote ketones when carbs are restricted.

And while mice on both the high-fat and keto diets gained more bodyweight than those on a low-fat diet, those on keto diets gained “significantly less” weight.

The other surprise, said Turnbaugh, was the role of so-called “ketone bodies”.

“Ketone bodies,” he explained, “are chemicals produced in our body when our cells do not have access to dietary carbohydrates,” such as when following a keto diet. That forces the body to use fat reserves for energy, instead of carbs. And scientists know that the by-product of that shift is a steady rise in ketone production.

But Turnbaugh and his colleagues discovered that in mice a gradual rise in ketone levels (sparked by a keto diet) was accompanied by a gradual shift in gut composition.

The tip of the iceberg

And that begged the question, could boosting ketone levels alone – independent of diet – also alter gut composition? More mouse research, said Turnbaugh, suggested that the answer is yes: “Ketone bodies can directly affect gut bacteria even in the absence of the full diet.”

Still, Turnbaugh cautioned that the current effort is “likely the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to better understanding the complex interaction between a keto diet, ketone bodies, the microbiome and disease risk. The study was small and more research is needed.

A similar note of caution was struck by Lona Sandon, who reviewed the findings. She is an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

“I am surprised that the keto diet showed potential effects on the gut microbiome that would lead to reduced inflammation in mice,” Sandon said. She added that prior research actually “suggests high fat/high protein diets are detrimental to the microbiome and increase inflammation”.

Sandon stressed that a keto diet comes with downsides. For one, although popular because it “can help control appetite”, people should know that the “benefits seen initially typically wane over time”, she said. And, she warned, patients prescribed keto to tackle other medical issues “often end up overweight and with increased cardiovascular risk factors”.

The study was published in the 20 May issue of the journal Cell.

^{Image credit:}

Health24.com | Why smokers appear to be particularly vulnerable to severe Covid-19 infections – what science says

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

New research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) suggests that cigarette smokers may be more susceptible to Covid-19.

The research suggests that smoking encourages the lungs to produce more ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme 2), the protein that makes it so easy for the SARS-Cov-2 to adhere to and infect the cells in the body.

This research was discussed in a news release and published in the journal Developmental Cell on 16 May 2020.

The ACE2 protein in different vulnerable groups.

One thing that the researchers from CSHL noticed is the dramatic differences in how patients with Covid-19 experience their symptoms. In most cases, people experience mild illness that can be treated, but some cases require hospitalisation and may even lead to death. They also noted three vulnerable groups who seem to be more prone to severe Covid-19: men, older adults and smokers.

CSHL Fellow Jason Sheltzer and Google engineer Joan Smith wanted to investigate these differences in Covid-19 infections and looked at previous data to determine if the vulnerable groups had anything in common.

“We started gathering all the data we could find. When we put it all together and started analysing it, we saw that both mice that had been exposed to smoke in a laboratory and humans who were current smokers had significant upregulation of ACE2,” explained Sheltzer.

The data didn’t suggest that age or gender directly affected the ACE2 levels in the body, but smoking influenced the level of ACE2 in the lungs, according to Sheltzer.

However, these high levels of ACE2 in smokers’ lungs seem to be temporary and quitting smoking could possibly lower the ACE2 levels.

According to Sheltzer, high ACE2 levels are produced by the so-called goblet cells – mucus-producing cells in the airway – which are often increased by smoking.

Now’s the time to quit

With the tobacco ban expected to be lifted when most districts in the country go down to Level 3, many people will be glad to hear that they will freely be able to purchase cigarettes.

But if you are concerned about your respiratory health and you think that now is a good opportunity to quit, you can read more here for tips on how to quit.

^{Image credit:}

Compiled by Marelize Wilke

Coronavirus: Children and older adults to take part in vaccine trial

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

The Oxford trial will monitor the effects on thousands of people’s immune systems.

Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Cape Town’s ‘hotspots’, grim projections, and how the virus exploits smokers

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA

Cases update:

The latest number of confirmed cases is 19 137.

According to the latest update, 369 deaths have been recorded in the country.

So far, more than 525 000 tests have been conducted, with more than 18 550 new tests

Latest news:

Five areas within the Cape Town metro have been identified as “hotspots” by the Western Cape government.

Lit up with red dots on maps of suburbs, the province has revealed where clusters of Covid-19 cases are being detected in the metro.

In a digital press conference on Wednesday, the province said it believed that having 62.6% of the national number of cases simply means that community transmission “seeded” earlier in the Western Cape, and that other provinces could soon follow suit.

They had identified clusters of outbreaks as “hotspots” and have focused testing, screening, tracing, support, and prioritising treatment of the most vulnerable from these hotspots.

Projections by a consortium of experts advising the government have been clarified to show that 12 million to 13 million Covid-19 infections could have cumulatively occurred in the country by November, of which only roughly 3.7 million will be detected.

News24 reported on Wednesday that the South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium projected a figure of between 1 and 1.2 million infections and that the model was not a crystal ball prediction, but subject to change as more data became available.

During a further media briefing by the consortium and other modelling groups on Thursday, in conjunction with Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, it has now been clarified that the one million infections are the expected number of active cases at the peak of the country’s infection curve at that specific moment in time.

Peak infection is expected to occur between early-July (pessimistic, 1.2 million cases) and mid-August (optimistic, 1 million cases), according to the consortium’s model.

The total number of detected cases would be around 3.7 million to 3.9 million cases by November, a report by the consortium published on the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD’s) website shows.

RED MORE | Covid-19 projections show 12 to 13 million infections by November

The cause of death of the baby born prematurely, and said to have died of Covid-19 after a two-day struggle for survival, will be investigated, the Western Cape government said on Thursday.

“We are saddened by this tragic loss of such a young life and send our deepest sympathies to the family at this time,” said Western Cape Premier Alan Winde.

“Western Cape doctors are currently investigating the case, to better understand all the details.”

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced the death of the baby on Wednesday evening.

Parliament is expediting the passing of the budget, which would allow Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to table an adjustment budget earlier than what normally would be the case.

The budget will outline the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The National Assembly Programming Committee agreed on Thursday to scrap the mini-plenaries in which each department’s budget is debated. This annual process usually takes a few weeks of the Parliamentary calendar.

Instead, there will be a 90-minute debate on the budget and an opportunity for parties to make declarations on their vote for each department.

The Gauteng Department of Education says it expects 300 000 Grade 7 and 12 pupils back when schools reopen on 1 June.

But, before the reopening can take place, health protocols will have to be met by all schools, Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said.

Lesufi was speaking at the province’s weekly Coronavirus Command Council briefing on Thursday.

The MEC said, in order for schools to be ready, it will need to have all the necessary personal protective equipment (PPEs) for pupils, while classrooms need to meet the necessary standards for physical distancing.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD

Cases update:

For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.

Early on Friday morning, positive cases worldwide were more than 5.07 million, while deaths were more than 331 000.

The United States had the most cases in the world – more than 1.57 million, as well as the most deaths – more than 94 500.

Latest news:

Wuhan, China, has banned the eating of wild animals and farmers in neighbouring regions are being offered cash incentives to stop breeding exotic livestock.

Both steps are part of China’s ongoing efforts to stem the transmission of viruses from animals to humans.

On Wednesday, authorities in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in Hubei and the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, announced eating wild animals would be banned, according to CBS News.

Wuhan would become a “wildlife sanctuary,” officials said, with a citywide prohibition on hunting except for “scientific research, population regulation, monitoring of epidemic diseases and other special circumstances,” according to the Independent.

Before it was shuttered in January, merchants at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market sold and slaughtered beavers, porcupines, and baby crocodiles, National Geographic reported.

LATEST RESEARCH

New research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) suggests that cigarette smokers may be more susceptible to Covid-19.

This research was discussed in a news release and published in the journal Developmental Cell on 16 May 2020.

The new coronavirus has mostly spared children, making them represent only a tiny fraction of confirmed Covid-19 cases, while largely affecting the elderly and those with pre-existing chronic conditions and weakened immune systems.

According to research, less than 2% of reported infections in China, Italy and the US have been in people under the age of 18. In South Africa, out of a total 312 deaths (recorded on 19 May), none occurred in anyone under the age of 20. Yet, researchers are still on the fence on whether children are less likely than adults to get infected and spread the virus, notes an article in the research journal Nature.

The World Health Organization (WHO) previously reported that although children seem to be mildly affected with no fatalities, experts still warn that children can contract the virus, and that this warrants serious consideration. The reason behind mild cases in children is not exactly clear, but experts agree that adults may be more susceptible to infection because of their age, since, with age, our immune systems become less effective.

A study, published in Science last month, examined data from Hunan and found that for every infected child under 15 years, there were close to three people infected between the ages of 20 and 64. Still, the existing data is less conclusive when it comes to teenagers aged 15 and older, says Munro, further indicating that their risk of infection is similar to that of adults.

A new modelling study by the Stop TB Partnership suggests that the longer countries spend under lockdown, the more tuberculosis (TB) cases and deaths the world could see.

While that report is a modelling study, with all the uncertainties that entails, there is now compelling evidence that South Africa’s TB response is already severely impacted. Spotlight studied the various new reports and asked a range of experts how the country’s TB response is holding up under lockdown.

A recent report from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) details a significant decline in TB testing since the beginning of the lockdown. In the weeks prior to the lockdown, the NICD conducted an average of 47 520 TB tests per week. This dropped to an average of 24 574 tests per week during the lockdown – a 48% reduction.

The report concludes that the decrease is largely due to restrictions on movement and public transport, rather than the availability of healthcare services.

Obesity makes Covid-19 worse and may lead to deadly blood clots in the lungs, a new study finds.

The researchers said that obese patients with Covid-19 may have nearly three times the risk of developing what is known as a pulmonary embolism.

“Clinicians can utilise our findings to aid in determining which patients should have evaluation for pulmonary embolism with pulmonary CT angiography, as the symptoms for Covid-19 and pulmonary embolism overlap,” said lead researcher Dr Neo Poyiadi, from the department of diagnostic radiology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

“Early detection of pulmonary embolism can allow prompt treatment with anticoagulation and minimise clinical problems,” he said.

HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)

• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing

• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment

• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus

• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.

READ MORE: Coronavirus 101

^{Image credit: Getty Images}

Health24.com | Why do some children get sicker from Covid-19 than others?

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

As schools in South Africa are set to reopen for Grades 7 and 12, there is a debate whether children are less at risk from Covid-19 than adults and those with underlying conditions.

While the general consensus has been that children are not as severely affected by Covid-19 as the elderly, more severe cases in children have been recorded throughout the world.

A new report from paediatric anaesthesiologists, infectious disease specialists and paediatricians at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine describes some of the most significant clinical characteristics of children hospitalised with severe Covid-19.

This report was published in the Journal of Pediatrics and compared the cases of 46 Covid-19 patients aged between one month and 21 years. These patients were either admitted to the general unit or the Pediatric Critical Care Unit (PCCU) at Montefiore.

Inflammation, obesity, asthma as factors

According to the study, the most common symptoms at the time of admission among these children were coughing and a fever. Those who required treatment in intensive care had higher levels of inflammation and required ventilation and breathing support.

About 80% of these children who required intensive care in the PCCU had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and of these, 50% required ventilators.

The researchers found that obesity and asthma were highly prevalent in this study, but there was no evidence that these conditions increased the likelihood of the patients needing higher intensity care, although the presence of obesity could explain the fact that they were sicker than other children.

“We know that in adults, obesity is a risk factor for more severe disease, however, surprisingly, our study found that children admitted to the intensive care unit did not have a higher prevalence of obesity than those on the general unit,” said lead author Prof Jerry Y. Chao in a press release.

According to the study, more than half the children had no known contact with another patient with Covid-19, which emphasised that the virus could be spread by asymptomatic people.

Children are not immune

It is important to note that the study had several limitations as it only analysed cases from one medical centre in an urban setting. As this is a new virus, paediatric data is still limited, and it was the goal of the authors to add to the data.

“Thankfully most children with Covid-19 fare well, and some do not have any symptoms at all, but this research is a sobering reminder that children are not immune to this virus and some do require a higher level of care,” stated senior author Prof Svanand S. Medar.

^{Image credit: Aditya Romansa, Unsplash}

Compiled by Marelize Wilke

Coronavirus: Immune clue sparks treatment hope

Posted on 22/05/2020 by Boris Clair

Better understanding of Covid-19’s impact on the immune system gives hope an existing drug might aid recovery.

WellnessMaster

Get The Latest News on Holistic Wellness

Category Archives: Mind Building

Placentas from COVID-19-positive pregnant women show injury

Self-Accountability

Coronavirus: Schoolchildren’s risks of catching and spreading the disease

Coronavirus: Children half as likely to catch it, review finds

Health24.com | Keto diet might change your gut in more ways than one

Health24.com | Why smokers appear to be particularly vulnerable to severe Covid-19 infections – what science says

Coronavirus: Children and older adults to take part in vaccine trial

Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Cape Town’s ‘hotspots’, grim projections, and how the virus exploits smokers

^{Image credit: Getty Images}

Health24.com | Why do some children get sicker from Covid-19 than others?

Coronavirus: Immune clue sparks treatment hope