Articles related to PUBLIC HEALTH

With fast symptom relief and reinforcing effects, benzodiazepines were once the gold standard for treating insomnia and anxiety. As opioids dominate headlines along with the public health crisis of drug overdose deaths, is it time to reconsider benzodiazepines as a course of treatment?

In a 7-year study of 171,000 individuals with a mean age of 56 years, these researchers elucidate the hazard ratio for death from CVD or cancer and levels of daily coffee consumption.

Monkeypox has never before appeared more or less simultaneously across different countries and now continents. So this current outbreak is both puzzling and concerning public health workers. Unlike the previous cases discovered outside Africa, the current outbreaks have occurred in people with no travel history, suggesting that human-to-human transmission is driving the spread. And in the current outbreak, the illness appears to be presenting atypically, without its normal prodrome. Read more about the hypothesized connection with smallpox eradication, available vaccinations, and public health response from the outbreak.

The CDC continue to recommend Paxlovid for early-stage treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 among individuals at high risk of progression to severe disease. Recent case reports suggest that some patients treated with Paxlovid may have a recurrence of COVID-19 symptoms two to eight days after completing the five-day course of treatment. Both the illness and the positive test results resolved, on average, three days later without the need for additional treatment.

Monkeypox is again spreading around the world, from Europe to North America. This is the first outbreak in US the since 2003 and the disease is now spreading fairly rapidly on a daily basis. Transmission between people mostly occurs through large respiratory droplets, normally meaning prolonged contact face to face. But the virus can also spread through bodily fluids. The latest cases have mainly been among men who have sex with men. Currently, the UK has the largest number of diagnosed cases, followed by Portugal, Canada, and Spain. Latest case counts by country can be seen here.

Researchers explain why the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is so contagious and spreads so rapidly in the general population.