March 25
Africa: Cardiovascular Risks and Covid-19 - New Research Confirms the Benefits of Vaccination
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. Yet, from the earliest days of the pandemic, the cardiovascular risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection were clear: individuals with severe… Read more »
March 14
Africa: If You're 65 or Older, It's Time for Another Covid-19 Shot
In my mind, the spring season will always be associated with COVID-19. Read more »
March 11
Africa: As the Pandemic Turns Four, Here's What We Need to Do for a Healthier Future
Anniversaries are usually festive occasions, marked by celebration and joy. But there'll be no popping of corks for this one. Read more »
March 01
Africa: Covid-19 Rapid Tests Still Work Against New Variants - Researchers Keep 'Testing the Tests,' and They Pass
By September 2020, just six months after COVID-19 triggered shutdowns across the U.S., it was clear that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, had mutated from its original… Read more »
February 23
Africa: Early Covid-19 Research Is Riddled With Poor Methods and Low-Quality Results - a Problem for Science the Pandemic Worsened but Didn't Create
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers flooded journals with studies about the then-novel coronavirus. Many publications streamlined the peer-review process for COVID-19… Read more »
February 28
Africa: Mounting Research Shows That Covid-19 Leaves Its Mark On the Brain, Including With Significant Drops in IQ Scores
From the very early days of the pandemic, brain fog emerged as a significant health condition that many experience after COVID-19. Read more »
January 25
Africa: One in Twenty People Has No Sense of Smell - Here's How They Might Get It Back
During the pandemic, a lost sense of smell was quickly identified as one of the key symptoms of COVID. Nearly four years later, one in five people in the UK is living with a… Read more »
Africa: The Emergence of Jn.1 Is an Evolutionary 'Step Change' in the Covid Pandemic. Why Is This Significant?
Since it was detected in August 2023, the JN.1 variant of COVID has spread widely. It has become dominant in Australia and around the world, driving the biggest COVID wave seen in… Read more »
January 22
Africa: Health, Safety Compromised for People Living With Long Covid and Intimate Partner Violence
What happens when a person is experiencing long COVID and intimate partner violence at the same time? There has been no attention paid to this question anywhere in the world since… Read more »
January 24
Africa: Five Books About the Covid Pandemic to Look Out for in 2024
Vi-fi, short for virus fiction, describes contemporary fiction that features the devastating events of world-changing outbreaks and epidemics. Rooted in science fiction, vi-fi… Read more »
January 23
Africa: How Long Does Immunity Last After a Covid Infection?
Nearly four years into the pandemic, Australia, like many other countries, is still seeing large numbers of COVID cases. Some 860,221 infections were recorded around the country in… Read more »
January 18
Africa: Excessive Social Media Use During the Covid-19 Pandemic Exacerbated Adolescent Mental Health Challenges
How does time spent online, and especially social media, affect the brains and behaviours of children and youth? Read more »
January 19
South Africa: Jobs in South Africa - the Labour Market Is Recovering From Covid - but Unskilled and Less Educated People Are Still Being Left Behind
For more than three decades the South African economy has had very high rates of joblessness. The country's economy has been unable to create enough jobs for its growing army of… Read more »
January 16
Africa: Covid Barely Gets a Mention These Days - Here's Why That's a Dangerous Situation
The United States experienced its second largest COVID wave of the pandemic in January 2024. For the year to December 2023, in England COVID rates peaked at around one in 24… Read more »
January 11
Africa: Long Covid - Damaged Mitochondria in Muscles Might Be Linked to Some of the Symptoms
It's estimated around 3% of people in the UK experience long COVID - persistent, long-lasting symptoms after a COVID-19 infection. Read more »
January 09
Africa: Some Believe the 1889 Russian Flu Pandemic Was Actually Caused By a Coronavirus - Here's Why That's Unlikely
COVID-19 was the first coronavirus pandemic. The original Sars virus from 2003 and the Mers virus that created a health emergency in South Korea in 2015 were both coronaviruses,… Read more »
Africa: Wanting to 'Move On' Is Natural - but Women's Pandemic Experiences Can't Be Lost to 'Lockdown Amnesia'
The COVID-19 pandemic was - and continues to be - hugely disruptive and stressful for individuals, communities and countries. Yet many seem desperate to close the chapter entirely,… Read more »
December 29, 2023
Africa: What Covid Diaries Have in Common With Samuel Pepys' 17th-Century Plague Diaries
People keep diaries for all sorts of reasons - to record events, work through difficult situations, or manage stress and trauma. The ongoing COVID inquiry shows diaries also have… Read more »
December 21, 2023
Africa: I Have Covid. How Likely Am I to Get Long Covid?
EG.5 or the Eris COVID variant is dominant in parts of Australia. Eris, along with other circulating strains, are descendants of Omicron. Read more »
December 18, 2023
Africa: mRNA Covid Vaccines Make 'Unintended Proteins' - We've Discovered How to Fix This Problem
mRNA, a type of genetic material that provides the instructions your cells need in order to make proteins, used to be a term mainly used by scientists. But since COVID arrived many… Read more »
December 13, 2023
Africa: We Followed 14 'Long Haulers' for 3 Months. Here's What They Told Us About Living With Long Covid
At least 65 million people around the world are estimated to have long COVID, which describes the continuation or development of symptoms at least three months after an initial… Read more »
December 05, 2023
Africa: Could Antivirals Reduce Your Risk of Long Covid? Where the Research Is Up to On Prevention and Treatment
Evidence is continuing to accumulate on the burden and frequency of chronic effects after a COVID infection, which fall under the umbrella term "long COVID". Read more »
October 30, 2023
Africa: Why Some People Got Blood Clots After the Astrazeneca Vaccine - New Clues
AstraZeneca in partnership with the University of Oxford developed one of the first vaccines against COVID. The vaccine, which used an adenovirus to smuggle instructions into human… Read more »
October 23, 2023
South Africa: How President Ramaphosa's Covid Speeches Drew On Mandela's Ideas of Unity
In times of crisis, leaders wield more than just political power. They harness the art of rhetoric in a bid to unite their nations towards a common goal. South Africa, with a… Read more »
September 12, 2023
Africa: How Evasive and Transmissible Is the Newest Omicron Offshoot, BA.2.86, That Causes Covid-19? 4 Questions Answered
The latest variant, or sublineage, of SARS-CoV-2 to emerge on the scene, BA.2.86, has public health experts on alert as COVID-19 hospitalizations begin to rise and the new variant… Read more »