Researchers say a new test can tell which patients with gonorrhea will benefit from treatment with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The low-cost drug has been out of use amid concern that the bacterium that causes gonorrhea was becoming resistant to it. In this study, 106 patients identified as having a gonorrhea strain called wild-type gyrA serine were cured with a single dose of ciprofloxacin. A test to screen for that strain has been available for three years, but this is the first time it has been systematically studied in humans, researchers said. “Gonorrhea is one of the most common drug-resistant infections worldwide and is becoming harder to treat. Current treatment methods require an antibiotic injection, which is expensive and painful,” said lead author Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “This new test could make it easier and safer to treat gonorrhea with different antibiotics, including one pill given by mouth. Using a pill instead of a shot would also make it easier and faster to treat sex partners of patients with gonorrhea,” he added in a UCLA news release. The DNA test that researchers developed identifies a genetic mutation that makes the gonorrhea bacterium resistant to ciprofloxacin. Ciprofloxacin works against infections without that mutation. In 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease…  read on >

As the U.S. coronavirus case count neared 5 million on Thursday, a new model predicted that nearly 300,000 Americans could die of COVID-19 by December if more people don’t wear masks or practice better social distancing. Researchers from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) on Thursday issued a forecast of 295,011 deaths from coronavirus by Dec. 1. However, if 95 percent of people were to wear a face mask in public, some 66,000 lives could be saved, they added. “We’re seeing a rollercoaster in the United States,” institute director Christopher Murray said in a statement. “It appears that people are wearing masks and socially distancing more frequently as infections increase, then after a while as infections drop, people let their guard down and stop taking these measures to protect themselves and others which, of course, leads to more infections. And the potentially deadly cycle starts over again.” His team’s model also identifies which states will need to re-impose mask mandates between now and the winter to slow the spread of transmission. In other pandemic news, the U.S. State Department on Thursday lifted its 5-month-old blanket warning against international travel for Americans. Instead, the department will now issue travel recommendations by country. Why the change? “Health and safety conditions improving in some countries and potentially deteriorating in others” influenced its decision,…  read on >

As coronavirus cases continue to surge across America, scientists on Wednesday called for widespread adoption of simpler, less accurate tests, as long as they’re given often and quickly. “Even if you miss somebody on Day 1,” Omai Garner, director of clinical microbiology in the UCLA Health System, told The New York Times. “If you test them repeatedly, the argument is, you’ll catch them the next time around.” The strategy hinges on having an enormous supply of testing kits. But many experts believe more rapid, frequent testing would spot people who need immediate medical care while also identifying those most likely to spread COVID-19, the Times reported. Of the dozens of coronavirus tests that have been granted emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, most rely on complex laboratory procedures, such as PCR, the Times reported. Only a few tests are quick and simple enough to be run in a doctor’s office or urgent care clinic, without the need for lab equipment. And these tests are still relatively scarce nationwide, though government officials say they plan to ramp up production of such tests by the fall, the newspaper said. “If you had asked me this a couple months ago, I would have said we just need to be doing the PCR tests,” Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Southern California,…  read on >

People getting their COVID-19 information from social media are more likely to receive misinformation, Canadian researchers report. But those who trust traditional media are less likely to have misperceptions. And they’re more likely to stick to public health recommendations such as social distancing, the research team found. For the study, researchers looked at millions of tweets, thousands of news stories and a survey of Canadians. “Platforms like Twitter and Facebook are increasingly becoming the primary sources of news and misinformation for Canadians and people around the world,” said researcher Aengus Bridgman, from McGill University in Montreal. “In the context of a crisis like COVID-19, however, there is good reason to be concerned about the role that the consumption of social media is playing in boosting misperceptions,” Bridgman said in a university news release. False information about COVID-19 is more readily found on social media like Twitter than on traditional news outlets, Bridgman and colleagues found. And they spotted big differences in behaviors and attitudes among people who get their news from social media instead of traditional news. These differences remained even after accounting for factors like scientific literacy and socioeconomic differences. Those who use social media regularly are less likely to keep social distancing and to see COVID-19 as a threat, but for those who get their information from regular news media it’s the opposite,…  read on >

If you’re younger than 65 years old and obese, COVID-19 poses a special danger to you. A new study reports that the more obese you are, the more likely you are to either die from infection with the new coronavirus or require lifesaving mechanical ventilation to survive. Morbidly obese COVID-19 patients are 60% more likely to die or require intubation, compared with people of normal weight, researchers found. Patients who were mildly obese were 10% more likely to die or need a breathing machine, while those who were moderately obese were 30% more likely, according to the study. “Increasing obesity was associated with an increased risk of lung failure or death in COVID-19,” said lead researcher Dr. Michaela Anderson, a pulmonologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. But obesity only posed a risk for people under 65, researchers added. Anderson said that’s probably because older folks are sicker, more frail, and more likely to develop respiratory failure with COVID-19 due to health problems unrelated to their weight. She and her colleagues reviewed medical records for nearly 2,500 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in March and April at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. They looked at body mass index (BMI), which is based on height and weight. Obesity begins at a BMI of 30; morbid obesity is 40 or over. “At the beginning…  read on >