Health News

Thailand urges calm after four test positive for virus

Thai authorities urged calm on Tuesday as they scramble to trace a potential coronavirus outbreak after at least four women tested positive on returning from neighbouring Myanmar. Since detecting the first case outside of China back in January, Thailand has managed to keep COVID-19 infections low, at just over 4,000 cases, in part by imposing […]

Health News

Nine COVID-19 vaccine developers pledge to carefully test shots

Nine US and European companies leading the coronavirus vaccine race make ‘historic pledge’ to carefully test their shots amid rising safety concerns Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, BionTech, Pfizer, GlaxoKlineSmith and Novavax signed the pledge It promises they will ‘uphold the integrity of the scientific process’ as they near the end of vaccine […]

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Pre-brain surgery test protects language in some tumors

A technique that maps a patient’s language centers before going into surgery works best when their brain tumor is not in those areas. The finding, published by Nagoya University researchers in the journal Scientific Reports, refines understanding of the test’s effectiveness and could help improve surgical planning. Gliomas are a common brain tumor that require […]

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Small study suggests COVID-19 antibody test shows promise

A test that can detect the presence of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the blood of human patients is described in Nature Medicine. This assay, tested in 16 patients, may help to identify individuals whose plasma contains antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which could potentially be used to treat other patients. Tests that detect the presence […]

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World-first saliva test detects hidden throat cancer

A simple saliva test developed by QUT biomedical scientists has detected early throat cancer in a person who had no symptom and no clinical signs of cancer. In what is believed to be a world-first, the non-invasive test picked up HPV-DNA in a saliva sample from an infected healthy person. Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection […]