Tocilizumab, an intravenous anti-inflammatory drug used for rheumatoid arthritis, has been shown to reduce the risk of death for patients hospitalized with severe Covid-19, as well as reducing the risk of ventilation and the amount of time until discharged from hospital.
As we all know, an issue of crucial importance in tackling the Covid pandemic is the acquisition, distribution and injection of approved Covid vaccines.
Life will not return to some type of normality until most of the population of our island are fully vaccinated. Normality is likely to continue to require that those travelling into Ireland require a mix of pre-travel Covid testing and quarantining. It is probable that once vaccination programmes are fully rolled out and completed, many countries, including Ireland, will only permit international travellers verifiably vaccinated to enter for family, business or tourist purposes.
Some may permit entry with the continued application of pre-travel testing and quarantine. A number of EU countries are currently considering this issue, others are not and there is no agreed approach across the EU.
Mystery disease at Sierra Leone chimpanzee sanctuary linked to bacterial infection For news media
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In 2005, chimpanzees at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Freetown, Sierra Leone, started getting sick. They would stumble, vomit and stop eating.
The illness came on quickly; some chimps were found dead before caretakers even knew they were sick. Searches for parasites, toxic plants or viruses responsible for the disease came up empty. Treatment couldn’t stave off death. Since then, 56 chimpanzees at the sanctuary have died of the mysterious illness, which has been dubbed epizootic neurologic and gastroenteric syndrome, or ENGS.
But a new study published this month in Nature Communications by researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Tacugama and an international team of colleagues reveals that an overlooked bacterial group known as