Infection News

Patients with immune mediated inflammatory diseases are tested for COVID-19 at a 20% higher rate than the general population, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

For some time now, we have been discussing COVID-19 as two epidemics. One is the tragic and unnecessary epidemic among those unwilling to be vaccinated who are pushing our fragile health care system to the limit, unnecessarily spreading the infections throughout the community, including to the most vulnerable. The other is one of breakthrough infections in those who have done what they can to protect themselves by being partially or fully vaccinated.

In this Healio Rheumatology Video Perspective, Leonard Calabrese, DO, shares his personal experience with a breakthrough COVID-19 infection, offering sage advice for clinicians who encounter COVID in their daily lives as well as their daily practice.

As many of you are aware, I have written and spoken on COVID-19 extensively over these past 20 months, and just last month wrote about the dangers of the delta variant. In July, things took an unexpected turn when I developed a breakthrough infection with the delta variant.

Patients with rheumatic diseases who were pregnant at the time of developing COVID-19 demonstrated favorable pregnancy and infection outcomes, according to data published in The Journal of Rheumatology.

Probenecid could potentially be used to prevent or treat not only COVID-19, but other respiratory illnesses including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus infection, according to data published in Scientific Reports.

There is not a single rheumatologist currently practicing in a U.S. county with low or even moderate COVID-19 spread, as defined by the CDC.

Living under COVID-19 lockdown was associated with a higher rate of joint inflammation in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to data from an Italian cohort published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Updated evidence “strongly supports” ending the use of hydroxychloroquine for either preventing or treating COVID-19, due to a lack of benefits combined with potentially fatal cardiovascular complications, according to a meta-analysis.

The NIH has launched a clinical trial to examine antibody responses to a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose in patients with autoimmune disease who failed to respond to the initial vaccine regimen.