Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Neurological Issues Found In Nearly 1 In 10 Kids Hospitalized With Covid
CIDRAP: Study: 7% Of Children Hospitalized With COVID-19 Had Neurologic Problems
A team led by Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt researchers assessed length of hospital stay, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, 30-day readmission, death, and medical costs of 15,137 COVID-19 patients aged 2 months to 18 years released from 52 children's hospitals from March 2020 to March 2022. A total of 37.1% of the patients had a pre-existing complex chronic condition, and 9.8% had one or more neurologic complex chronic conditions. (10/20)
CIDRAP: Study: Moderna COVID Vaccine Safe, Comparably Effective In Preschoolers
Two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine were safe in children aged 6 months to 5 years and triggered similar immune response and protection against infection as that seen in young adults, according to preliminary results from a phase 2/3 clinical trial published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 10/20)
San Francisco Chronicle: Vaccines Didn’t Prevent Hospitalization As Well During Summer Surge
The original mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna didn’t work as well in preventing hospitalization during the summer’s BA.4/BA.5 omicron surge as they had during the original BA.1/BA.2 omicron spike last winter, according to new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Vaziri, 10/20)
In research developments not linked to covid —
NPR: Health Department Medical Detectives Find 84% Of U.S. Maternal Deaths Are Preventable
For several weeks a year, the work of nurse-midwife Karen Sheffield-Abdullah is really detective work. She and a team of other medical investigators with the North Carolina public health department scour the hospital records and coroner reports of new moms who died after giving birth. (Dembosky, 10/21)
CIDRAP: Small Trial Supports Shorter Antibiotics For Kids' Pneumonia
A randomized clinical trial conducted in Canada found that 5 days of high-dose amoxicillin was non-inferior to 10 days in children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), researchers reported this week in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. (10/20)
CIDRAP: More Stewardship Needed For Postoperative Antibiotics In Kids, Study Finds
A multicenter observational study found that the use of antibiotics after nonemergent surgery in children varied widely across US hospitals but was not correlated with skin site infection (SSI) in children, US researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Surgery. (10/20)
NPR: Brain Cells In A Dish Play Pong And Other Brain Adventures
The world of brain research had two incredible developments last week. Researchers have taught a dish of brain cells to play the video game Pong to help develop more intelligent AI. Separately, scientists transplanted human brain organoids into a living animal with the hope of using them as models of human disease. (Scott, Hamilton and Cirino, 10/21)
