Health & Fitness

Medical research Two US patients recover from intractable infections, giving hope for treatments beyond antibiotics Two US patients have recovered from intractable infections after being treated with a pioneering therapy involving genetically engineered bacteria-killing viruses.The cases raise hopes that so-called phage therapy could be used more widely to combat the global crisis of drug-resistant infections. One of the patients, Jarrod Johnson, a 26-year-old man with cystic fibrosis, was approaching death after suffering a chronic lung infection that resisted treatment by antibiotics for six years. After being given the phage therapy, his infection cleared allowing him to receive a lung transplant and resume an active life. “I am so grateful for the effort, persistence and creativity o...

More than half of all Michiganians live in counties where they should mask up indoors following a spike in COVID-19 cases, according to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Across the state, 16 counties — including Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and many others near heavily-populated Metro Detroit — are now in "high" community levels, a CDC classification to show where COVID cases and hospitalizations have risen to the point that people are recommended to wear masks indoors. The city of Detroit is also at a high level, the city health department said. Last week, only one county was considered to be at a high community level: Grand Traverse in the northern lower peninsula. Nearly every county spent most of April in the "low" category. Another 28 counties are conside...

CNN  —  The day they wheeled 2-year-old Baelyn Schwab into surgery to get a new liver, her skin was orange, and she was delirious. “Her eyes didn’t look like they were attached to her head anymore,” her mom, Kelsea Schwab, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “They were just rolling all over. “She would still ask for bananas and ask for juice and ask for snuggles, kind of like she’s still there, but not really,” she said. Seemingly out of nowhere, Baelyn’s liver had become so damaged that it could no longer clean ammonia out of her blood. She’s part of a nationwide investigation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Babies at risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) could be identified through a biochemical marker, a new study published in The Lancet’s eBioMedicine finds. SIDS is the unexplained death of a seemingly healthy baby less than a year old, typically during sleep, according to the Mayo Clinic. The CDC reports SIDS accounted for 37% of infant deaths in the United States in 2019.  Researchers investigating the cause of SIDS at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead (CHW) in Australia said they identified the first biochemical marker that could help detect babies more at risk of sudden infant death syndrome while they are still alive. Dr. Carmel Harrington, an honorary research fellow who led the study, said its findings were game-changing. H...

Osterholm is also the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and author of The New York Times bestseller "Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs." Our conversation was edited for clarity, and the views expressed are his. BERGEN: And that was by Dr. Anthony Fauci. OSTERHOLM: Yes, his comment was obviously interpreted by most to mean that the pandemic was over. I realize that he was referring to the fact that we're out of the big peak of cases right now, which is true. BERGEN: And he walked that statement back a day or two later. OSTERHOLM: On the other hand, I've seen no data which supports the possibility of a fall or winter surge in the US resulting in 100 million cases. No one should make that kind of statement...

What is hepatitis? Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver that is usually caused by a viral infection or liver damage from drinking alcohol.  Some cases resolve themselves, with no ongoing issues, but a fraction can be deadly, forcing patients to need liver transplants to survive. What are the symptoms? People who have hepatitis generally have fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-colored stools and joint pain. They may also suffer from jaundice — when the skin and whites of the eyes turn yellow.  Why are experts concerned? Hepatitis is usually rare in children, but experts have already spotted more cases in the current outbreak than they would normally expect in a year. Cases are of an 'unknown origin' and are also severe, according to the World...

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday elevated both Nassau and Suffolk counties' "community level" risk of COVID-19 transmission to high, with public health officials now urging Long Islanders to wear a mask indoors in all public locations. The change, which puts Long Island in the most high-risk designation, comes amid a steady increase in coronavirus cases in recent months — a spike health officials contend has been fueled by both the spread of the omicron subvariants and by the end of mask mandates in schools and other crowded indoor buildings. The CDC's recommendation is not enforceable, and masks are now mandatory in only a handful of locations across the state, including hospitals, nursing homes, state-run public transportation hubs and local airports. T...

The daily number of COVID-19 cases reported in Los Angeles County continued growing on Thursday, May 12, prompting renewed warnings that younger residents are most likely to become infected and unvaccinated residents are most likely to become severely ill. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer on Thursday reported 3,407 new COVID infections, along with nine new virus-related deaths. She said the average daily number of new cases recorded over the past week rose to more than 2,600, up nearly 20% from a week ago. The county’s transmission rate also continues to rise, with the average daily rate at 26 per 100,000 residents, up from 21 a week ago. More notably, the seven-day cumulative rate reached 176 per 100,000 residents. If that number tops 200 per 100,000 residents, it will mo...

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