Global Health

The new Covid variant concerning experts worldwide has claimed its first victim, health officials have announced.

The first death from the Arcturus strain, thought to be around 1.2 times more infectious than the last major sub-variant, was recorded in Thailand yesterday, amid a surge in cases across the globe.

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Mozambique Asks for Additional Cholera Vaccine After Cyclone Freddy Health officials intend to vaccinate people in high-risk areas Charles Mangwiro VOA

Maputo, Mozambique —  Mozambique has asked the World Health Organization to supply an additional 2 million doses of a cholera vaccine as the country struggles to control a spreading outbreak.

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The XBB.1.16 COVID Symptoms Doctors Are Seeing The Most Right Now The new strain, also known as XBB.1.16, is presenting a few new issues that we haven't really seen with infections before. Yahoo News

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Red, itchy eyes have been reported in children infected with XBB.1.16, but adults may experience the symptom as well.

Fevers are higher than in previous COVID variants.

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People infected with the coronavirus were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes within a year of their infection, compared with those who had not been exposed to the virus, researchers in Canada reported Tuesday.

Men were more likely to develop diabetes than women, the scientists found. People who were so sick that they were hospitalized were more than twice as likely to go on to a diabetes diagnosis, compared with those who were not infected.

People who were admitted to intensive care were more than three times as likely to develop diabetes, the researchers also found. The findings add to a growing body of evidence about COVID’s long-term effects.

“This is definitely a concern in terms of long-term outcomes,” said Dr. Naveed Z. Janjua, the paper’s senior author and a professor at the School of Population and Public Health at University of British Columbia.

“With a respiratory infection, you usually think, ‘Seven or eight days, and I’m done with it; that’s it,’” he added. “Here we’re seeing lingering effects that are lifelong.”

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, used a large data set from British Columbia to compare diabetes diagnoses among more than 125,000 individuals who had tested positive for COVID in 2020 and 2021 with those of more than 500,000 unexposed individuals during the same period.