Clinical

JUCM News told you recently about a confirmed case of polio in Rockland County, New York. Given that it’s a suburban/rural area roughly an hour from New York City, it’s causing some alarm that just days ago the virus was identified in wastewater samples in the Big Apple. According to a story published by The New York Times, only around 86% of children 5 years of age and younger are fully vaccinated against polio; less …

Cases of monkeypox continue to grow worldwide, with 32,000 cases reported (11,000 of which have occurred in the United States), according to the World Health Organization. One aspect of the WHO’s response has nothing to do with facilitating vaccination or treatment, though. With a nod to what it calls “current best practices” for naming diseases, the WHO is looking for new names for monkeypox variants that steer clear of associating them with geographic regions. This …

Per the latest recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who’ve experienced symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection can stop isolating after 5 days, provided that they’ve been fever-free for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medication and their symptoms have improved. People who’ve tested positive but experienced no symptoms can stop isolating after day 5 without conditions. New data just published by JAMA Network Open lean in the other direction, however. In a small (N=40) …

One of the knocks against using nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) to treat patients with SARS-CoV-2 has been that it could send patients running to the emergency room, and possibly face hospitalization, for rebound COVID-19. It’s enough to discourage some people from taking it, even if they’re high risk for poor outcomes with COVID. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, those patients should be more concerned about the consequences of not …

Some metropolitan public health officials across the country have complained about poor distribution of tests for monkeypox since the slow and steady uptick of cases in the United States began in May. Most recently, New York City declared a state of emergency in order to expand access to resources to fight outbreaks there. And with nearly 3,500 U.S. cases confirmed according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human …

JUCM News first alerted readers to rising cases of monkeypox in May. At the time, the news from around the world was more of an oddity than a cause for concern. The novelty has now worn off, however, as the World Health Organization just upgraded the status of monkeypox to an official global health emergency. As noted in The New York Times, the global caseload now exceeds 16,000 in 75 countries. This is a rare …

For the first time in almost a decade, someone has been diagnosed with polio in the United States. Per a report from CNN, it’s suspected that the virus identified in the Rockland County, New York man originated in another country. While he himself had not traveled internationally recently, it’s believed that he was infected by an individual who was vaccinated with the oral vaccine still used in some areas of the world. (The U.S. stopped …

A quick look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 tracker reveals that new cases have been rising slowly for more than a month, with hospitalization rates rising even more steadily. Some cities, such as Chicago, are raising their official warning levels to “high.” Los Angeles is looking at reinstituting a mask mandate for indoor spaces. What’s missing is the widespread sense of crisis, or even panic, that has gripped previous surges in …

It’s high season for tick bites and related diseases. As an article just published by Patient Care reminds us, there’s far too much misinformation leading the public (and probably some clinicians) to fail to recognize the signs and dangers of Lyme disease. For example, patients ultimately diagnosed with Lyme disease do not always have the telltale “bullseye” rash. Further, in spite of its Connecticut-based moniker, its spread is not limited to the East Coast. And …

It’s not uncommon for patients with nonemergent eye complaints to present to urgent care. What might not be top of mind for male patients with ocular symptoms, however, is whether use of erectile dysfunction medications could be the root of the problem. An article recently published by JAMA Network might move you to consider it, though. “Regular use of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors for [ED] was associated with increased risks of serous retinal detachment (SRD), …