Italy recorded a lower day-to-day increase of coronavirus cases for the second day in a row Monday. Italy’s Civil Protection agency documented 4,789 new cases Monday, 700 less than the 5,560 new cases reported Sunday. Also 997 less new cases were reported on Sunday, representing a big drop after their highest levels ever on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st. 

Although it is still early to confirm any trend and more data must be collected to say it is a favorable situation, it is br...

The industrializable model has been validated by experts from the Parc Taulí hospital in Sabadell (Spain).

Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB), Leitat, Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa and the Parc Taulí hospital in Sabadell, in collaboration with several companies, have developed the first mechanical respirator by industrializable 3D printing. That is, with scalable production capacity.

They hope to create 50-100 units a day over the next week. Respirators are, in f...

Via Science, Robert F. Service write: The standard coronavirus test, if available, works well - but can new diagnostics help in this pandemic?


As the United States races to ramp up testing for the pandemic coronavirus using technology based on the tried-and-true polymerase chain reaction (PCR), alternative approaches are beginning to roll out that could make it easier and quicker for people to learn whether they have been infected. Some methods modify the standard PCR test, which a...

Via Science, Kai Kupferschmidt and Jon Cohen write: WHO launches global megatrial of the four most promising coronavirus treatments.

Excerpt:

A drug combo already used against HIV. A malaria treatment first tested during World War II. A new antiviral whose promise against Ebola fizzled last year.

Could any of these drugs hold the key to saving COVID-19 patients from serious harm or death? On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a large global trial, c...

French Confirmed COVID-19 patients were included in a single arm protocol from early March to March 16th, to receive 600mg of hydroxychloroquine daily and their viral load in nasopharyngeal swabs was tested daily in a hospital setting. Depending on their clinical presentation, azithromycin was added to the treatment. 
Twenty cases were treated in this study and showed a significant reduction of the viral carriage at D6-post inclusion compared to controls, and much ...

While there are no medications currently approved to treat people with the novel coronavirus, there are several therapies being investigated as potential life-saving options. Remdesivir is one of the most promising, with Donald Trump touting the drug during a press conference Thursday.

Remdesivir, which is delivered through an intravenous infusion, was initially developed by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola. Although initially promising, it didn’t prove as ...

During this coronavirus crisis, some healthcare professionals are having a breath of hope as they see how some of the severe patients are being extubated successfully, with a favorable diagnosis. “First succesfully extubated patient in a the ICU of Hospital Ramón y Cajal” claimed the Twitter user Chechu Torres.










But this was not the only good news of these last days. Esteban Martín, general surgeon in Hospital Clinico San Carlos, also posted a mes...

Abstract



This paper investigates how air temperature and humidity influence the transmission of COVID-19. After estimating the serial interval of COVID-19 from 105 pairs of the virus carrier and the infected, we calculate the daily effective reproductive number, R, for each of all 100 Chinese cities with more than 40 cases. Using the daily R values from January 21 to 23, 2020 as proxies of non-intervened transmission intensity, we find, under a linear regression framework for 1...

35 companies are in this moment on a race to find the vaccine againts COVID-19.



Making vaccines usually takes a decade or more between development, safety testing and manufacturing, so this race is not only against each other, is against time.
The most positive estimates talk about 12 to 18 months to have a vaccine for this SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
An American team in Seattle started a Phase 1 trial to test their mRNA-1273.Find out more: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/new...

Global MediXchange for Combating COVID-19 presents a presents a book that gathers the experience gained during the coronavirus outbreak in China.
 Click this link to access the book

• China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them.• Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. Combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Retonovir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. They are going to suggest same medicine, globally.• Researchers of the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus.• A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days...