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Fact or Fiction? A) Approximately 1 in 5 people with COVID-19 are hospitalized. B) COVID-19 patients rarely present with dermatological symptoms.

Fact or Fiction? In a preliminary study, remdesivir improved severe COVID-19 outcomes.

Fact or fiction? Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is preferred over NSAIDs for symptom management in patients with confirmed/suspected COVID-19.

We are here for you Thanks to your ongoing support, MDBriefCase has been a leading provider of free innovative online continuing health education for almost 20 years, and we will continue to be here during these uncertain times. MDBriefCase commits to standing by you. Sincerely, JASON FLOWERDAY MBA, BScChief Executive OfficerMDBriefCase Group Inc.

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change is harming human health as more people suffer from heat stress, extreme weather and mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. The U.N. agency, in a report issued a day after a climate summit began in Madrid, urged governments to meet ambitious targets to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions saying it could save a million lives a year through lower air pollution alone. “Health is paying the price of the climate crisis. Why? Because our lungs, our brains, our cardiovascular system is very much suffering from the causes of climate change which are overlapping very much with the causes of air pollution,” Maria Neira, Director of WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, told a news briefing. Yet less than 1% of international financing for climate action goes to the health sector, she said, calling it “absolutely outrageous”. Global temperatures could rise sharply this century with “wide-ranging and destructive” consequences after greenhouse gas emissions hit record levels last year, international climate experts warned last week. “WHO considers that climate change is potentially the greatest health threat of the 21st Century,” said WHO expert Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum. “The reason […]

Now 98 years old, he is still working and opens his surgery in the Paris suburbs two mornings a week for patients, some of whom he has treated for decades. With no health woes of his own – he doesn’t even wear glasses during his consultations – Chenay said a quiet retirement had no appeal. “If you’re over 60 they put you with the old people. One day you’ve got cards, the next day bingo, then there’s sudoku… With all that you become a complete idiot. I’m better off being a doctor!” Originally from Angers in western France, Chenay worked as a welder before becoming a doctor, ultimately qualifying as a radiologist before moving back into general practice. His surgery does not look high tech – there is a fax machine but no computer on the desk – but Chenay says he keeps up to date with all the latest developments via his subscriptions to online medical journals. He says a new development in his nearly seven-decade career is patients who erroneously diagnose themselves on the internet and then turn up at his surgery demanding drugs. Many of his patients say they struggle to get appointments in Chevilly-Larue, which has […]

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Not enough breastfeeding costs the global economy almost $1 billion each day due to lost productivity and healthcare costs, researchers said on Friday, as health experts urged more support for nursing mothers. A new website developed by researchers in Canada and Asia showed that the world could have saved $341 billion each year if mothers breastfeed their children for longer, helping prevent early deaths and various diseases. Known as the “Cost of Not Breastfeeding”, the online tool used data from a six-year study supported by the U.S.-based maternal and child nutrition initiative, Alive & Thrive. “It is a human right, it saves lives and improves the prosperity of economies,” Canada-based health economics expert Dylan Walters said about the importance of breastfeeding. Walters, who led the study of more than 100 countries, said the website was the first of its kind and aimed to help policymakers to measure economic losses in individual countries when they do not support breastfeeding. The United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that babies be breastfed exclusively at least their first six months, then have a diet of breast milk and other food until they are two years old. Breastfeeding […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Evidence is weak for whether medicinal cannabis treatments can relieve mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression and psychosis, and doctors should prescribe them with great caution, researchers said on Monday. In a review of scientific studies that analyzed the impact of medicinal cannabinoids on six mental health disorders, the researchers found “a lack of evidence for their effectiveness.” Their findings have important implications for countries such as the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada, where medical cannabis is being made available for patients with certain illness, said Louisa Degenhardt, a drug and alcohol expert at Australia’s University of New South Wales in Sydney. “There is a notable absence of high-quality evidence to properly assess the effectiveness and safety of medicinal cannabinoids … and until evidence from randomized controlled trials is available, clinical guidelines cannot be drawn up around their use in mental health disorders,” she said as her results were published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. Despite a lack of clinical trial evidence, anecdotally some military veterans and others who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety say they have found cannabis helpful in easing some of their symptoms. Other conditions cannabis is used for include […]