Mar 14th, 2023 - (Reuters) -The U.S. health regulator’s staff reviewers said on Tuesday data from Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 drug trials support its use in adults at high risk of progressing to severe disease, bringing the pill closer to a full approval. The Food and Drug Administration made its assessment in briefing documents ahead of a meeting of the agency’s external advisers on Thursday to discuss full approval...

Feb 28th, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here) Feb 28 (Reuters) - Welcome to Health Rounds! People with Parkinson’s disease often find that over time, their medication becomes less effective and their symptoms become harder to control. The gold-standard procedure for these...

Feb 21st, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here) Feb 21 (Reuters) - Welcome to Health Rounds! For the first time, researchers have been able to restore hand and arm movements years after a paralyzing stroke. A separate team reported on Monday that a staggering number of kids...

Feb 7th, 2023 - OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada’s federal government said Tuesday it will provide an additional C$46.2 billion ($34.4 billion) in new funding for healthcare over 10 years, part of the latest healthcare deal as federal ministers meet with their provincial counterparts to hammer out a deal on healthcare funding. The investment would be part of an overall C$196.1 billion increase in funding over 10 year...

Feb 7th, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.) Feb 7 (Reuters) - Welcome to Health Rounds! Today we report on data from two small early trials in which the naturally-occurring hormone kisspeptin showed promise for treating low sexual desire. Also, researchers reported thi...

Feb 7th, 2023 - (Reuters) - Canada’s provincial and federal leaders were slated to meet on Tuesday in an attempt to agree upon potential solutions to bolster the country’s stretched public healthcare system. Long a source of pride, Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system has been strained to the breaking point due to factors including the pandemic and staffing shortages. Here are some of the issues facing C...

Jan 31st, 2023 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on May 11 will end the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) that allowed millions of Americans to receive vaccines, tests, and treatments at no cost during the pandemic. As the government hands off to commercial channels, including private insurance and government health plans, most Americans, even those who have health insurance, should expect some ...

Jan 31st, 2023 - (Adds details of the outbreak, background) PARIS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Bolivia has reported two outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, for the first time, as the virus spreads in Latin America after wiping out tens of millions of birds in Europe and the United States. The spread of the highly contagious virus is a concern for governments and the poultry indus...

Jan 31st, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.) Jan 31 (Reuters) - Welcome to Health Rounds! Health Rounds has been running for almost a month now and it is time to ask you, the readers, for feedback: Are you interested in early advances that are still at the laboratory st...

Jan 24th, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.) Jan 24 (Reuters) - Hello Health Rounds Readers! Today we look at early-stage research that suggests we may soon be able to detect a deadly form of lung cancer before it spreads and becomes incurable, while it might also be po...

Jan 19th, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.) Jan 19 - Hello Health Rounds Readers! Today we report on two studies of potential applications for artificial intelligence in medicine: MRI scanning, and smart watch identification of heart rhythm problems. We also share earl...

Jan 17th, 2023 - (Health Rounds is published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.) Jan 17 - Hello Health Rounds Readers! Highly sensitive blood tests for confirming a heart attack are widely employed around the world, but a new study suggests most U.S. hospitals still do not use them. Data from this study m...

Jan 11th, 2023 - BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese state media defended on Wednesday the retaliatory measures against South Korea and Japan over their COVID-19 travel curbs as “reasonable”, while Chinese tourists decried Seoul’s “insulting” treatment on social media. China re-opened its borders on Sunday after three years of isolation under the world’s strictest regime of COVID restrictions, which Beijing abruptly beg...

Jan 10th, 2023 - HONG KONG (Reuters) - China’s Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products reported a net loss in 2022, hurt by waning demand for COVID-19 vaccine shots. The decline from a net profit of 1.3 billion yuan ($191.71 million) in 2021 to net losses of up to 150 million yuan was mainly driven by weaker COVID vaccine demand, it said in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange. ($1 = 6.7810 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Jan 10th, 2023 - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan plans to cull more than 10 million chickens because of the spread of bird flu, a record for the peak infection season that runs from October to May, an agriculture ministry official said on Tuesday. With the latest avian flu case detected at a poultry farm in Miyazaki in southwestern Japan on Tuesday, the total number of chickens to be culled in the 2022 season reached 1...

Dec 27th, 2022 - (Adds analyst comment, updates shares) PARIS, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Shares in global luxury goods groups, which rely heavily on Chinese shoppers, rose on Tuesday after Beijing further relaxed some COVID restrictions that had been in place for the past three years, fuelling hopes of a full-blown reopening soon. China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine starting from Jan. 8,...

Dec 20th, 2022 - BEIJING (Reuters) - Anhui Biochem Pharmaceutical’s self-developed COVID-19 treatment medicine has passed the clinical trial stages and professional reviews, and is waiting for regulatory approval to enter the market, said a statement released by China’s eastern Hefei government in Anhui province on Tuesday. The drug is targeted at adult patients with mild to moderate COVID symptoms, the Hefei g...

Dec 6th, 2022 - Dec 6 (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday its emergency task force has concluded that messenger RNA bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, targeting the original strain and the Omicron BA.4-5 subvariants, may be used in previously unvaccinated children and adults. The vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as rival Moderna are currently authorised only as a booster in the European ...

Dec 6th, 2022 - Dec 6 (Reuters) - The three costliest therapies under Medicare health insurance in the United States saw price hikes in 2020 but there was not enough evidence of new clinical benefits, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) said on Tuesday. Horizon Therapeutics’ gout treatment Krystexxa’s list price increased by 12%, which led to an additional out-of-pocket expense of $3,210 per ...

Nov 29th, 2022 - WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday urged Beijing to back away from stringent lockdowns to manage ongoing COVID-19 cases and instead move toward more targeted actions, citing the impact on China’s people and economy in an interview with the Associated Press. Georgieva called on Beijing to undergo a “recalibration” of its so-called “zero COVID” ap...