Month: June 2021

June 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. drug regulator on Friday added a warning to the literature that accompanies Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech (22UAy.DE) and Moderna (MRNA.O) COVID vaccine shots to indicate the rare risk of heart inflammation after its use. For each vaccine, the fact sheets for healthcare providers have been revised to include a warning that reports of adverse events suggest increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly after the second dose and with onset of symptoms within a few days after vaccination, the FDA said. As of June 11, more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis have been reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), out of about 300 million mRNA vaccine doses administered. The cases appear to be notably higher in males...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has received at least a dozen reports of sick or dead songbirds every week, and at least 100 in the last month. On Friday, Natural Resources recommended Hoosiers remove bird feeders statewide. The state on Friday also said sick or dying songbirds have now been found in 15 counties. The first reports of songbird deaths came from Washington, D.C., in early June before reports started coming in from the Midwest and at least five Indiana counties: Monroe, Clark, Jefferson, LaGrange and Lake. Sick or dying songbirds have now been found in Indianapolis and Marion County, and the Indiana counties are Clark, Delaware, Hamilton, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, LaGrange, Lake, Marion, Newton, St....

Enlarge / A UNLV Medicine medical assistant administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination to a UNLV School of Nursing student. Even mild cases of COVID-19 in young people often lead to lingering symptoms and health complications that drag on for six months or longer, according to a small Norwegian study published this week in Nature Medicine. Researchers at the University of Bergen carefully followed 312 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 for at least six months. Of those, 247 had mild to moderate illnesses and isolated at home, never becoming sick enough to be admitted to a hospital. Six months after testing positive, 136 of the 247 (55 percent) still had lingering symptoms. And those 136 weren’t only in the older age groups. In fact,...

A new study projects more than 2 million adults in England likely experienced persistent symptoms in the months following COVID-19 infection, or so-called long COVID. Researchers affiliated with Imperial College London released findings Thursday, stemming from over half a million people in England who participated in several rounds of the Real-Time Assessment of Community Transmission-2 (REACT-2) study, which invited random samples of adults to take surveys from September to February.  "Long COVID, describing the long-term sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 infection, remains a poorly defined syndrome. There is uncertainty about its predisposing factors and the extent of the resultant public health burden, with estimates of prevalence and duration varying widely," authors prefaced. The survey,...