Respiratory Infections News

Researchers in China found that hospitalized patients with milder cases of COVID-19 were treated earlier with an assortment of antivirals compared with patients who experienced more severe disease, suggesting that the timing of antiviral therapy may significantly slow COVID-19 progression.

A little more than 3 years before the United States announced its first confirmed case of what would come to be called COVID-19, Anthony S. Fauci, MD, told a gathering of students and global health experts at Georgetown University there was “no doubt” that the Trump administration would face a surprise infectious disease outbreak. Fauci’s experience as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than 30 years told him that it was inevitable. Since 2000 alone, there had been outbreaks of West Nile virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the years-long West African Ebola epidemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left academic institutions, government bodies and the private sector scrambling to find drugs to combat the novel coronavirus.

In response to increasing concern about the ways in which infection with COVID-19 will affect people living with HIV, or PLWH, physicians from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and Arizona Liver Health have launched the Coronavirus Under Research Exclusion, or CURE, HIV-COVID registry for physicians to report cases of COVID-19 in PLWH. The goals of the registry are to understand the natural history of COVID-19 in PLWH, examine the impact of treatments that are given and share the findings with providers throughout the world to increase the medical community’s understanding of COVID-19.

The FDA authorized the first COVID-19 diagnostic test with a home collection option, reissuing an emergency use authorization that permits LabCorp to test nasal swab samples self-collected by patients at home using the company’s Pixel test kits.

An international group of researchers terminated a safety and efficacy phase 2b trial of higher dose chloroquine as a treatment for patients with COVID-19 early after observing increased safety hazards and fatality rates.

The unique challenges of COVID-19 require adjustments to the delivery of palliative care during the pandemic, according to an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

On Friday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association released recommendations for what they believe is needed to reopen the country, while warning that prematurely easing social distancing measures — put in place to lessen the spread of COVID-19 — could heighten the number of infections and deaths, incapacitate health care facilities and prolong economic hardships.

The rate of coinfection with other respiratory pathogens in patients with COVID-19 may be higher than previously thought, according to a research letter published in JAMA.

As of April 15, nearly 2 million confirmed cases and more than 126,000 deaths in 213 countries and territories worldwide had been reported in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to WHO. However, in spite of these increases that are widely reported, many people are being discharged from hospitals and making a full recovery.