Respiratory Infections News

Oral dexamethasone reduced length of stay and ICU admissions in adults with community-acquired pneumonia, according to research presented at the virtual European Respiratory Society International Congress.

Interventions to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission have led to a global decline in influenza during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers reported in MMWR.

Among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in the United States, male sex, age 60 years and older, obesity, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and living in the Northeast were associated with an increased risk for mechanical ventilation, data show.

A COVID-19 vaccine will not be “generally available” to the American public until 2021, CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, MD, said Wednesday.

Recently, the AAP announced that pediatric cases of COVID-19 surpassed 500,000 in the United States.

According to a new report in MMWR, 78% of pediatric deaths related to SARS-CoV-2 occurred in Black, Hispanic, American Indian, or Alaska Native people, although these groups represent just 41% of the U.S. population.

Former CDC director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, said the world will need more than a COVID-19 vaccine to end the pandemic.

Eli Lilly & Co. announced that its JAK inhibitor baricitinib, when combined with remdesivir, reduced the time to recovery in patients with COVID-19 compared with remdesivir alone.

Merck’s investigational V114 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine — which includes 15 serotypes — is noninferior to the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine currently on the market for adults, the company announced in a press release.

There is no strong evidence to date to support or discourage the use of NSAIDs in patients with COVID-19, according to a presentation during the virtual PAINWeek meeting.