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Medicine

Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases (nytimes.com) 122

Posted by BeauHD from the whack-a-mole dept.
schwit1 shares a report from The New York Times: As poor countries around the world struggle to beat back the coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases -- ones that are readily prevented by vaccines. This spring, after the World Health Organization and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for shots, many countries suspended their inoculation programs. Even in countries that tried to keep them going, cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted by the pandemic and health workers diverted to fight it.

Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh. A mutated strain of poliovirus has been reported in more than 30 countries. And measles is flaring around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria and Uzbekistan. Of 29 countries that have currently suspended measles campaigns because of the pandemic, 18 are reporting outbreaks. An additional 13 countries are considering postponement. According to the Measles and Rubella Initiative, 178 million people are at risk of missing measles shots in 2020. The risk now is "an epidemic in a few months' time that will kill more children than Covid," said Chibuzo Okonta, the president of Doctors Without Borders in West and Central Africa. As the pandemic lingers, the W.H.O. and other international public health groups are now urging countries to carefully resume vaccination while contending with the coronavirus.
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Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases More

Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases

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  • Miracle COVID-19 drug found (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    An existing, inexpensive drug called dexamethasone has been found to drastically reduce mortality rates in the sickest COVID-19 patients [bbc.com], it was announced by a team from Oxford university. This could be a potential game-changer for people on ventilators or needing supplemental oxygen, who are among the most severe cases and are in very real danger of dying. This drug could have saved thousands of lives if it had been used during this past spring's surge of cases, but can be available for the anticipated s

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Bullshit. Dexamethasone is a generic drug that has no place in modern medicine. I am confident the trials will ultimately conclude that dexamethasone, like HCQ, is ineffective in the treatment of Covid-19.

      It's a complete waste of taxpayer money to fund research on these generic drugs. Taxpayer money is better spent funding research on new, patentable medicines that generate revenue for key stakeholders of Fortune-level pharmaceutical companies.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Dexamethasone is a steroid that ameliorates the cytokine storm. It reduces the death rate of people on ventilators by 1/3. I asked a math genius what that means, and he told me that means it did not help the 2/3 of the people on ventilators that died.

      • It reduces the death rate of people on ventilators by 1/3.

        If Trump tweets about this, that number will drop to zero. Or lower. It'll might even start killing innocent bystanders.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          "I read that a lot of people with COVID-19 die after being put on ventilators. We should look into not putting people on ventilators since they seem to be killing people with COVID-19"

        • If by 'innocent bystanders' you mean all the Republican Turnip supporters who will show up at his gods-be-damned campaign rallies, then you're correct. Trump himself is going to be personally responsible for decimating his own support base. The Hague is right in wanting to haul him in on crimes against humanity charges. If it's not true right now, it'll be true by the end of the year.

          • Trump himself is going to be personally responsible for decimating his own support base.

            "social distancing for thee, but not for me!" -- SJW mob pulling down historical statues and swarming in protest to abolish the police.

            Besides, covid is institutionally racist against blacks. [sciencenews.org]

            Oh, wait....

            • Nobody wants to 'abolish the police', they want to change the nature of the police which is something entirely different.
              There has to be someone to enforce the laws of the land, but read my sigline. You can have all the police you want -- just no more jackbooted, gun-toting racist THUGS who go around killing non-white people just because they can. There are countries who have 'public safety' departments that perform the same functions as 'police' without being militarized or being violent racist thugs who

              • Nobody wants to 'abolish the police', they want to change the nature of the police which is something entirely different.

                "People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society [archive.org], built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation"

                Cooperation, instead of individualism. Mutual aid instead of self-preservation. Well doesn't that sound all warm and fuzzy and nice.

                It's too bad you don't actually want "police reform". You want the 'lone female backpacker through ISIS territory' vision of law enforcement that ignores what good cops have to deal with

                • I haven't been on slashdot much in the last year. Glad to see at least one person here hasn't completely lost their brains in todays environment.. high5

                • He actually thinks I believe all cops are bad cops
                  I never said that, and your all-or-nothing thinking isn't impressing me, either.
                  No one said that the 'good' cops have to go. No one said ALL cops have to go. Are you even reading? Or are you just seeing what you want to see?
                  Why should the 'good' cops have their reputations ruined because there's some violent asshole cops who shoot first and ask questions later? Don't they deserve to be on a police force, or 'public safety service', or whatever it might b

    • Re:Miracle COVID-19 drug found (Score:4, Informative)

      by thegreatbob ( 693104 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @08:49AM (#60188964) Journal
      http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-... [ox.ac.uk]

      Good stuff, though I wouldn't necessarily dub it miraculous; a 1/3 reduction in rate of death is absolutely nothing to scoff at, but hardly enough to tout it as an absolute solution. At any rate, very glad progress is being made on this front - but beware of those who would become complacent upon hearing news like this.

      • It would probably be a lot more useful if given before a ventilator is needed. A lot of the lung damage is permanent, so waiting that far along is a bad idea unless there are severe risk factors for the drug.

        • The trial also gave it to patients who were on oxygen and, I think, to some in hospital who were on neither. It helped the patients on oxygen less and the ones on neither even less.

          It seems Covid19 is an infection that goes through a number of different stages (not all of them in every patient) and the biological processes in each stage are different. This drug helps with some of those that happen in the most severe stages, but not the earlier stages.

    • Let's see the peer review [Re:Miracle COVID-19...] (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @08:52AM (#60188974) Homepage

      Important note: don't put much faith in preliminary results before they have been peer reviewed and confirmed in other labs, and particularly not in preliminary results reported in the media which don't link to a published study.

      The media really really wants to report a breakthrough, and they want to be the first to report one. But breakthroughs often seem like they're happening, and when the full data set gets in, they turn out to be spurious.

      This may look good now, but let's see them publish their data before saying "it's a breakthrough!"

      As for being "a game changer"-- the BBC article says: For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%. For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%.

      They're still dying. Just not quite as much.

      • but I'd like to see more talk about long term side effects of the disease. It attacks cells in your lungs that can't heal. Like, ever. Meaning that if you get a bad case of it you get permanent lung damage.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skids ( 119237 )

        The media really really wants to report a breakthrough, and they want to be the first to report one.

        Well, the media I watch has been pretty restrained. This one is getting a bit more steam due to the source and methods. Peer review still pending, of course.

        It won't be enough to loosen restrictions: In order to actually benefit from this treatment you actually have to have enough ventilators and ICU beds, and without enough restrictions and precautions, you won't. Looks like AZ, AK, AL, TN, SC and FL are currently in danger of finding this out the hard way.

        Hopefully this will pan out and more treatment

    • https://xkcd.com/882/ [xkcd.com]

      Lots of things seem to be game changers when you don't understand the game. You don't even know what game is being played.

    • LOL I just heard about this. One in ten. That's how much good it is. It's not a 'cure'. At best it's a 'clue'. All it does is calm down the immune system, keep it from completely freaking out. Sometimes. It does nothing to stop the virus, not in and of itself.

  • In early April, the CDC & WHO basically raised a red flag that COVID-19 could/already was hindering the vaccination programs around the world and bring about a large group vulnerable to things like measles.

    My mid-April they already released guidance that said vaccinations must continue and governments should double up efforts to target the most vulnerable.

    The primary reasons why vaccines are on the down side is lack of resources for inoculation & logistics. These were from the reallocation of medic

    • Whenever someone comments on the WHO, it's useful to replace "WHO" in their statements with "international Jewish conspiracy". This illuminates the crazy racist conspiracy theories that don't need to be addressed by civilized people.

      • Still, they make good music. Their song You Better You Bet was #1 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart for five weeks beginning April 4th, 1981.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You can see the results in the UK already. Official about 42k people died of COVID-19 but the excess death numbers (the number of deaths above the expected amount for this time of year) puts up more like 65-70k.

      Part of that will be people who had COVID-19 but were not diagnosed or it didn't go on the death certificate for some reason. Part of it is people not getting treatment they need and not getting services they need during lockdown.

    • Yes, the headline should be: Management burden of COVID-19 hinders ability to control other diseases

      Blaming the management measures themselves (the "lockdown") is just as much a false narrative as blaming the continued necessity of general isolation measures ("lockdowns") in the US on the health officials or one political party. If the US would put sufficient resources into testing and tracing, and everyone would actually follow infection control guidelines (like wearing masks to protect others, even when

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skids ( 119237 )

        Really what needs to be asked is, without a lockdown if we just let it spread, what would have happened to the supply lines for vaccination programs with all those people all dying at once and everyone else out sick for weeks. We were fucked either way.

  • The problem with health ministers is they don't understand economics. The problem with economic ministers is they don't understand health. This is when prime ministers and presidents matter. Strong leaders like Arden follow the data and take decisive action. Weak leaders like Trump flounder because the blame lies with them for not being able to reconcile two conflicting problems.

    • A remote easy to isolate island(s) like NZ with a relatively small spread out population and not a huge amount of tourists in comparison to elsewhere is a completely different ball game to countries with large populations that may be tightly packed.

      If Arden had been in charge of other countries with larger far more fractious and belligerent populations it would have been a different story for her and I suspect - though I'm not american - that her professional emoting and empathising schtick would go down li

      • Re:Apples and oranges (Score:5, Informative)

        by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @10:27AM (#60189204) Journal

        I'm game...

        NZ tourism accounts for $16.2B of their economy and 5.8% of their GDP [wikipedia.org]. Total tourists were 3.9M in 2019. Population of NZ: 4.8M. They have almost as many tourists per year as citizens (~81% tourists per year to population).

        Shutting down all tourism-related activities in NZ would have take approximately $34B out of their economy (on a yearly basis) or about 11% of their GDP.

        In comparison, the USA received 70M tourists in 2017 with a population of 331M (~21% tourists to population). And with 9/11 as a precursor, the US has had a lot of experience shutting down its borders (compared to NZ), and infinitely more resources to do so in comparison.

        You may not like her (I don't actually care about her one way or another), but your criticisms of her accomplishments are misplaced.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          Its the actual amount that matters, not the amount relative to population size. 3.9M is peanuts - Heathrow airport in the UK dealt with twice that number of passengers per MONTH last year.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          I agree with the balls to shut down to the border. Actually executing it, I'd take New Zealand any day of the week. With a land border you're disrupting a lot of border communities much harder than everyone else. At least that's a bit how it felt here in Norway, in practice the border to Sweden, Denmark and Finland has been open since the 1950s and suddenly now there's a new Berlin wall in a place nobody expected one. We've had lovers caught on different sides, people who can't use the cabins, shops and res

        • The US has practice shutting down it's border?

          We haven't been able to control either border for at least as long as I've been alive.

          We've only made it harder for the government to do so in recent years.

        • He is just an idiot, and not liking here "one way or the other" clearly shows you have problems with your eyes. I suggest to visit an eye doctor :P

      • If Arden had been in charge of other countries with larger far more fractious and belligerent populations it would have been a different story for her and I suspect - though I'm not american - that her professional emoting and empathising schtick would go down like a bucket of cold sick in certain parts there.

        Have you considered that the populations may be "fractious and belligerent" because their leaders have been encouraging that behavior for a few decades? And that to healthy, well-adjusted adults her empathy might not be seen as a "schtick" but as genuine concern?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          "well-adjusted adults her empathy might not be seen as a "schtick" but as genuine concern?"

          You mean suckers who arn't wise to the cynical ways of politicians. You don't get to be in charge of a country by being Mr/Mrs Nice.

    • Have you even read the article? This is not about public health vs. economics. It's about Covid-19 disrupting vaccination campaigns for diseases like measles, polio etc. Logistics & personnel.

      Air planes grounded to stop Covid-19 patients coming from abroad? That means you can't fly in vaccines for those other diseases. Or fly them to remote regions. So you must travel over land then. Using roads which are often shitty. Health workers (which may already be thin on the ground in some countries mentione

      • Yeah, the health-based decision to ground flights ignored the economic reality of how we distribute medicine. Stockpiles are a concern for homeland security services. How we operate businesses in crisis is an issue best handled by the commerce department.

        You need someone to reconcile all the problems and deliver a solution that meets all those needs effectively.

        Trump's administration dropped the ball on almost everything because there was no "great decider". He was reacting to fringe conspiracies and shovel

  • will corona virus cure autism, daddy? (Score:4, Funny)

    by clovis ( 4684 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @08:49AM (#60188962)

    Now we will have a massive experiment on the effects of childhood vaccinations. If the anti-vaxers are right, there should be a drop in the autism corresponding the percent of un-vaxed children. That assumes people don't rush out to catch up on missed vaccinations, which I doubt will happen this year.

    • That assumes people don't rush out to catch up on missed vaccinations, which I doubt will happen this year.

      My kids have missed their check-ups. But I'll get them up to date next time we have a reason to bring them in.

      I know a pediatrician who said, "They're telling us to tell parents to keep bringing their kids in for checkups, but *I* wouldn't".

    • If the anti-vaxers are right, there should be a drop in the autism corresponding the percent of un-vaxed children/quote. They aren't right, science already verifies it. Another experiment won't help convince anyone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by clovis ( 4684 )

        If the anti-vaxers are right, there should be a drop in the autism corresponding the percent of un-vaxed children/quote.
        They aren't right, science already verifies it. Another experiment won't help convince anyone.

        I agree that "Another experiment won't help to convince anyone" is most likely true for those rabid anti-vaxxers and trolls, but this might be another bit of data to help convince new parents who are sincere and doing their own research to get those vaccinations done.
        The anti-vaxxers have an army spreading their BS, so every bit of new data would help, I hope.
        And as a plus the cost of the research for this is nearly free.

  • Third World countries are always hanging by a thread. They get used to relying on first-world nations and international foundations/organizations to supply them with food, water, medicine, plumbing, roads, durable housing, and other amenities and technology that first-world nations consider as basic.

    When the first-world closed up shop to quarantine for COVID-19, the gravy train stopped. Once the inflow ended, and the supply dried up, the third world goes right back to what will always happen if the flo

    • Nigeria is Africas largest oil producer and one of the largest in the world yet most of its people still live in utter poverty thanks to standard issue african corruption in the government.

      But hey, I'm sure BLM would say its all nasty colonial whiteys fault that africa is an utter basket case after 100 years of freedom even though other former colonial countries like India are sending satellites into orbit and have a nuclear arsenal.

      • BLM is addressing a problem in the US, dickhead. It's not a statement about the whole world.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          In case you hadn't noticed dickhead, BLM has offshoots everywhere in the west from europe to australia ans has already caused a riot in the UK. Why don't you try keeping up to date with international news you insular clown.

        • Really! Are you ignorant or malevolent, or both?

          In my country BLM organised a protest in support of the 'oppressed gypsies' who apparently suffer police brutality like blacks in America....

          Statues are pulled down in numerous EU states.

          This will not end well in November, when the cancelled majority goes to the pools....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Nigeria is Africas largest oil producer and one of the largest in the world yet most of its people still live in utter poverty thanks to standard issue african corruption in the government.

        But hey, I'm sure BLM would say its all nasty colonial whiteys fault that africa is an utter basket case after 100 years of freedom even though other former colonial countries like India are sending satellites into orbit and have a nuclear arsenal.

        Resource curse is a real thing. A lot of African states have large oil reserves or are in mineral rich areas which can bring them large amounts of revenue, but without strong institutional controls corruption, crime, and conflict can easily take hold. You either get people fighting to control those resources or you have people in power diverting the revenue from those resources to benefit themselves/their party/their tribe, etc. Instituting strong checks and controls can ensure that the revenue trickles

      • But hey, I'm sure BLM would say its all nasty colonial whiteys fault that africa is an utter basket case after 100 years of freedom
        Yes it is the whites fault.

        They conquered random parts of Africa and called it "a colony". When they left, they left a random part and called it a state.

        However basically every African state is of multiple nations/languages. Many don't even have their own currency but use a currency provided by french and/or British banks.

        If a president wants to change that he dies a mysterious

    • We'll probably need a country level Floyd video of some kind before people wake up to 3rd world exploitation and then march for that... but you can't fit all that into a disturbing 8 min video.

      Aid given usually has strings attached as they are desperate for it. Loans and debt are used to keep them in place as well. Then you have corruption where foreign powers are always contributing and for some they actively intervene if true reforms begin.

  • This is just part of the pipers cost for the lockdowns. What did people expect to happen when they shut down the economy? Despite what CNN or MSNBC may have told you, viruses and diseases do not actually care about human politics. They are not 'woke' and do not care about safe spaces or bad orange man.

    What did people think would start to happen when you started blocking people from getting healthcare like physicals? Part of that healthcare includes getting your shots - vaccines to diseases that we have solv

  • This is another example of why we need to reduce our numbers. With fewer people we could more readily have high vaccination rates and situations like covid-19 wouldn't have as much of a cascading effect.

    Fewer people means less pollution which in turn means cleaner air, land and water which will also help to curb diseases.

    • Nonsense, China wouldn't have 90+% vaccination rate if population or population density had fuck all to do with it. Mandatory vaccination is the only issue, this article's issue was because idiots in charge stopped it when there are easy ways to safely vaccinate.

      We don't have ANY resource shortage on this planet, just resource allocation issues which are political and engineering problems. There is no shortage of helium (investor B.S. hype), fuel, energy, water, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JackAxe ( 689361 )
      Are you going to volunteer? I've been hearing this my entire life and in some cases it's coming from people that thought the world would run out of food.

  • At least in the Northern hemisphere, the lockdowns and social distancing cut cold and flu cases down considerably. Trying to reduce the deaths from COVID had the knock on effect of reducing flu deaths as well.

    https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]

    It works both ways of course. There will be more deaths from cancelled treatments and surgeries, people not seeking medical help when they need it, and probably increased suicides from financial or emotional hardship. OTOH there will be less deaths from workplace in

  • As poor countries around the world struggle to beat back the coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases -- ones that are readily prevented by vaccines.

    All countries that locked down stopped doing things like cancer screening, elective surgeries (this means non-emergency surgeries), etc. Plus people have been afraid to go out when sick so there are [very] negative non-Covid effects on health everywhere.

    • All countries that locked down stopped doing things like cancer screening, elective surgeries (this means non-emergency surgeries), etc. Plus people have been afraid to go out when sick so there are [very] negative non-Covid effects on health everywhere.

      I assume there were fewer traffic accidents too. Thing is, I have no idea what the magnitude of all these effects are. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing studies on this for at least the next decade trying to determine whether lockdowns saved or cost life-years as we firm up the number of people who actually died from Covid, what happens to other infectious diseases, stress, traffic accidents, domestic abuse, and a slew of other factors.

  • Flu down 93% in Australia (Score:3)

    by trawg ( 308495 ) on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @06:12PM (#60190850) Homepage

    Flu rates are down almost 93% in Australia [racgp.org.au] compared to same period as last year.

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