|
 Stepping up steroid use
Several U.S. hospitals in states with fresh surges of COVID-19 cases
have started treating their sickest patients with dexamethasone
rather than await confirmation of preliminary results of a study by
British researchers, who said the inexpensive steroid saves lives.
Traditionally, doctors wait for detailed data to be published in a
peer reviewed journal - or for guidelines from medical societies -
before embracing a new treatment, so they can better gauge the risks
against the drug's benefits. The urgency of the coronavirus pandemic
and lack of other treatments has altered those calculations.
"It almost feels unethical not to use the drug," said Dr. Kartik
Cherabuddi, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of
Florida's medical school.
New data suggests European strain
China has released genome sequencing data for the coronavirus
responsible for a recent outbreak in Beijing, with officials saying
on Friday it identified a European strain based on preliminary
studies.
Details published on China's National Microbiology Data Center
website revealed the Beijing genome data was based on three samples
- two human and one environmental - collected on June 11. That was
the same day the Chinese capital reported its first new local
COVID-19 infection in months.
"According to preliminary genomic and epidemiological study results,
the virus is from Europe, but it is different from the virus
currently spreading in Europe," CDC official Zhang Yong was cited as
saying in an article published on Friday by the Central Commission
for Discipline Inspection on its website.
"It's older than the virus currently spreading in Europe."
Seeking united recovery
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European Union leaders will try to narrow their differences over a coronavirus
economic recovery plan at a video-conference summit on Friday, worried that
further bickering and delay will only dent public confidence in the bloc as a
deep downturn takes hold.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU, reeling from more than 100,000
deaths linked to COVID-19 and facing its worst recession since World War Two,
urgently needed an agreement on its multi-year budget and a multi-billion-euro
recovery fund.
"The pandemic has revealed how fragile the European project still is," Merkel
told parliament in Berlin, lamenting the "rather national and not European"
initial response to the pandemic by EU governments, including her own.
UK alert level lowered
The United Kingdom's chief medical officers have agreed that the COVID-19 threat
level should be lowered one notch to "epidemic is in general circulation" from
"transmission is high or rising exponentially".
The UK has a COVID-19 death toll of more than 50,000 based on official data
including fatalities where it is mentioned on death certificates, making it one
of the worst hit countries in the world.
"There has been a steady decrease in cases we have seen in all four nations, and
this continues," the chief medical officers of England, Wales, Scotland and
Northern Ireland said.
"It does not mean that the pandemic is over. The virus is still in general
circulation, and localised outbreaks are likely to occur."
(Compiled by Linda Noakes, Editing by William Maclean)
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