The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued the first emergency use authorization (EUA) for a COVID-19 antigen test, a new category of tests for use in the ongoing pandemic. These diagnostic tests quickly detect fragments of proteins found on or within the virus by testing samples collected from the nasal cavity using swabs. The EUA was issued late Friday to Quidel Corporation for the Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA. This test is authorized for use in high and moderate complexity lab...

The Chinese city of Wuhan will begin what it is calling "10 days of mass battle" to test all 11 million residents after the discovery of a new cluster of coronavirus cases, NPR's Emily Feng reported.

Each of the city's districts will be required to create a testing plan by Tuesday, according Reuters, which first reported the initiative.

Wuhan, where the world's first coronavirus cases were reported in late December, eased many restrictions in early April after a strict lockd...

Gains made in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV could be reversed, with new HIV infections among children up by as much as 104%
A modelling group convened by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS has estimated that if efforts are not made to mitigate and overcome interruptions in health services and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, a six-month disruption of antiretroviral therapy could lead to more than 500 000 extra deaths from AIDS-related illnesses, including from ...

Reports from UK’s two biggest operators come prior to release of official figures on Tuesday.

Two of the UK’s biggest care home operators have reported falling death rates from Covid-19, raising hopes that outbreaks which have devastated some of the most vulnerable and elderly people may finally be abating.

The number of residents who have recovered from the virus has now eclipsed the numbers of deaths from it across 220 care settings operated by MHA, the largest charitable prov...

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak today include: Global cases approach 4.2 million 



South Korea’s Seoul nightclub cluster grows to 64 

China reports no new domestic cases after spike on weekend 

New York City’s death toll may be 5,000 higher than official toll 

Fauci to tell US senate reopening early risks ‘needless suffering and death Trump accused of raci...

A new study -- the largest of its kind -- shows that hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by President Trump, does not work against Covid-19 and could cause heart problems.
The study was published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It follows a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine that also showed the drug doesn't fight the virus.Even before these reports were published, the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of...

Researchers say people can catch mild, cold-causing coronaviruses twice in the same year.



Starting in the fall of 2016 and continuing into 2018, researchers at Columbia University in Manhattan began collecting nasal swabs from 191 children, teachers, and emergency workers, asking them to record when they sneezed or had sore throats. The point was to create a map of common respiratory viruses and their symptoms, and how long people who recovered stayed immune to each one.

Purple rashes, swollen legs, clogged catheters and sudden death — blood clots, large and small, are a frequent complication of COVID-19, and researchers are just beginning to untangle why. For weeks, reports have poured in of the disease’s effects throughout the body, many of which are caused by clots. “This is like a storm of blood clots,” says Behnood Bikdeli, a fourth-year cardiology fellow at Columbia University in New York City. Anyone with a severe illness is at risk of developing c...

New research has suggested a key enzyme found in our blood may be the reason why men are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection.The study, published in the European Heart Journal, showed men's blood has higher levels than women's of a key enzyme used by the coronavirus to infect cells, possibly explaining why men be more likely to contract the virus.Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is found in the heart, kidneys and other organs. In COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel ...

Sixty-four children and teens in New York State are suspected of having a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that is believed to be linked to COVID-19, the New York Department of Health said in an alert issued Wednesday. A growing number of similar cases — including at least one death — have been reported in other parts of the U.S. and Europe, though the phenomenon is still not well-understood.




Pediatricians say parents should not panic; the condition remains extremely ra...

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread, public health and economic well-being are increasingly in conflict. Governments are prioritizing public health, but the current solution—social isolation—is costly as commerce remains shut down. Restarting economies could rekindle the pandemic and cause even worse human suffering. Innovation can help societies escape the untenable choice between public and economic health. The world needs effective vaccines, therapies, or other solutions. But...

When the coronavirus pandemic first emerged, public health officials told the world to watch out for its telltale symptoms: fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. But as the virus has spread across the globe, researchers have developed a more nuanced picture of how symptoms of infection can manifest themselves, especially in milder cases.

We're getting a "better understanding of how these symptoms express in the general population and not necessarily in hospitalized patients," w...