Health

The NHS was “creaking at the seams” when the pandemic hit – and this undermined the care given to both coronavirus patients and those needing treatment for other conditions, the Covid public inquiry has been told. On the opening day of the third stage of the inquiry, which is looking at healthcare, lawyers said the health service entered the pandemic ...

US health officials have confirmed a human case of bird flu in a patient that had no immediately known animal exposure. The patient, in the state of Missouri, was treated in hospital and has since recovered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. It is the 14th human case of bird flu in the US in 2024 and ...

The government’s plan to tackle the hospital backlog in England will fail without a fundamental reform in how services work, health leaders say. Labour aims to increase the number of appointments and operations done each week by 40,000, to help hit the 18-week waiting time target. But NHS Confederation research found that would only deliver about 15% of the extra ...

Britain’s health regulator said on Wednesday that the available data does not establish a link between a popular class of diabetes and obesity drugs, including Novo Nordisk’s NOVOb.CO Wegovy, and suicidal thoughts. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) began a review of safety data for the class of drugs, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, more than a year ...

Scientists have studied more than 2,000 samples of poo from babies in the UK to get a clearer idea of which types of bacteria first colonise a newborn’s gut. Researchers say they were surprised to find baby poo fell into three distinct microbiological profiles, with different “pioneer bacteria” being abundant in each. One in particular, called B. breve, could help ...

Men taking sodium valproate are being warned to use contraception while on the medicine, because of a “potential small increased risk” of autism and other neurodevelopmental problems for any children conceived. They should continue to do so – and cannot donate sperm – until three months after they have stopped taking the drug. Sodium valproate, prescribed under brand names including ...

It came as a bolt from the blue to thirty-three-year-old pregnant Ayesha (not real name) when she was diagnosed with HIV. She was happy with her two children but unexpectedly became pregnant for the third time. Her husband Nuru Safa is an expatriate Bangladeshi living in a Middle Eastern country. He comes to Bangladesh every year for 15 days to ...

Cancer occurs in people of all ages and can affect any part of the body while the disease is a leading cause of death for children and adolescents worldwide. It is afflicting that the number of cancer patients has been increasing day by day due to food habit, unhealthy lifestyle and negative impact of industrialization and technology. In such a ...

  Matiar Chowdhury:   Every year in Great Britain, 80 thousand British citizens die due to smoking. And that’s why the British government wants to completely ban cigarettes in Britain to protect citizens from death. From now on no one can smoke in public wherever they want. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Stormer has called for a ban on smoking ...

There is no link between mobile phone use and increased brain cancer risk, according to a new World Health Organization-commissioned review of the available published evidence worldwide, Reuters reports. Despite the huge rise in the use of wireless technology, there has not been a corresponding rise in the incidence of brain cancers, the review, published on Tuesday, found. That applies ...