Health News

GUY ADAMS: Barney's illness was cruelly timed. He was first diagnosed with brain cancer during the chaotic early weeks of the first Covid lockdown, in March 2020. Tom and Hannah had been trying to do something similar, albeit with two kids, at their home in Surbiton, South-West London. Barney, for his part, was clearly unwell. Previously a healthy and happy baby, who spent his days crawling around the house and crashing into furniture, for several weeks he had been lethargic and clingy. More worryingly, something was wrong with his balance: previously able to clamber up stairs and haul himself upright on furniture, like an ordinary 13-month-old, he seemed to have lost strength in his legs.

The number of Covid deaths over the winter was similar to those caused by flu in previous years, official figures have revealed. Deaths caused by the virus rocketed during the first waves of the pandemic before a vaccine was developed and rolled out. This, along with immunity from natural infection, now means the Covid mortality rate has 'fallen more in line' with that of flu or pneumonia during pre-pandemic years. In January this year, there were 4,100 deaths caused primarily by a Covid infection in England and Wales, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). That compares with a January average of 4,048 deaths from flu or pneumonia in the four years preceding the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. The trend is similar for the other winter months of December, February and March, the data shows.

A stunned mum-of-two has revealed she had no idea she was pregnant with her second child until moments before she gave birth. Emma Fitzsimmons gave birth to daughter Willow Rose last Tuesday after going to emergency with stomach pains. Doctors found she wasn't sick, but in labor. Emma was shocked and said she had none of the symptoms of her first pregnancy.

In a rallying cry urging nations to act now, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) executive called the situation 'containable'. Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (pictured), the WHO's emerging diseases lead, said: 'We want to stop human-to-human transmission. We can do this in the non-endemic countries.'

The test has been championed by television presenter Julia Bradbury, left, who was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 51, and has been welcomed as 'promising' new research by Health Secretary Sajid Javid. It could be particularly valuable to identify under-50s at higher genetic risk of breast cancer, who can't currently get mammograms on the NHS. A major study on the saliva test looked at almost 2,500 women's risk of developing breast cancer. Among these women, who were followed up for an average of almost ten years, 644 got breast cancer. The test, used alongside the standard medical and life history information, and a measure of women's breast density, accurately predicted a higher risk of breast cancer in just under 50 per cent of those who got it.

An Australian dentist who developed an Irish accent after tonsil surgery despite never having visited the country before has documented her vocal transformation a year later.  Brisbane professional Angie Yen, 29, who was born in Taiwan but moved to Australian when she was eight, didn't know what to think about her new twang following an operation on her tonsils in April 2021. Ms Yen has never been to the European nation, and has no Irish heritage.

Jean Jefferson and her husband Colin, main pictured, from Yorkshire had been planning holidays to the Algarve in his 60s when he suffered a devastating stroke which left him unable to feed, clean or wash himself. Instead her daily routine is an endless slog of hauling her 'heavy-set' husband into and out of his wheelchair, emptying bed pans and cleaning soiled sheets. Rosemary Westwell, 64, inset left, spent 15 years fighting for justice for her husband John, pictured on their wedding day, who suffered a rare form of dementia aged 34.

Dr Amesh Adalja, from John Hopkins University, said patients were infectious for as long as they had symptoms including skin lesions. Virus can be passed on by touch or via the air. Fears are growing that America will detect more cases of monkeypox as health chiefs probe at least seven possible infections including one in New York City. One case has been confirmed in Massachusetts so far, but experts warn more will crop up in other states.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, who heads up the CDC, called on older Americans to get their second booster jabs last night. But many experts have suggested there is no evidence the shots are needed. Second boosters were approved for older adults at the end of March but, to date, only a quarter have received the additional shot. The CDC is now doubling down on efforts to get more people jabbed for a fourth time. They are concerned about waning levels of immunity in the population, with tests showing Covid-fighting antibody levels decline after vaccination. However, they have not concerned other facets of immunity - including B and T-cells - which normally last for much longer. When the jabs were first approved Dr Mark Marty, a medical expert at John Hopkins University, warned agencies had 'simply ignored' its own experts that disagreed with the decision.

The country has now detected 30 cases of the tropical virus - more than anywhere else in the world, including Britain. Almost all have occurred in Madrid, in young gay and bisexual men. Authorities tasked with tracing the cases in the Spanish capital say they have now uncovered a common theme among the infected - they all attended the same unnamed sauna. The word sauna is used in Spain to describe establishments popular with gay men looking for sex, as opposed to just a bathhouse. UK health chiefs are also probing saunas and bars, as they desperately try to contain monkeypox. Officials say a disproportionate number of its cases are in gay and bisexual men. World Health Organization (WHO) bosses convened an emergency meeting to discuss monkeypox's threat today, with the Netherlands becoming the twelfth country to declare cases. Although, none of its ill patients have yet to be definitively diagnosed. WHO's European chief has admitted he is concerned that the spread of monkeypox will only accelerate over the summer months. He also warned that it was likely transmission had been 'ongoing for some time'.

The Office for National Statistics ( ONS ) estimates just over one million, or one in 55 people, had the virus on any day in the week to May 13. This is down week-on-week from 1.2 million, or one in 45. Similar falls were recorded in the other UK nations, with just one in 45 people in Scotland, one in 40 in Wales and one in 60 in Northern Ireland estimated to have the virus. This is now the sixth week in a row that the ONS's weekly survey — now the best barometre of the outbreak — has reported a week-on-week fall in cases, despite no Covid restrictions being in place. The Government is relying on the study, based on swabs of 120,000 random people, to track the virus now that free testing has been axed for the vast majority of Britons.

Amanda Pritchard (pictured), chief executive of NHS England, yesterday told trusts to allow visitors to boost patients' 'experience, mental health and recovery'. In a letter sent to hospital bosses, she said all healthcare settings 'should now begin transitioning back towards their own pre-pandemic (or better) policies on inpatient visiting'.

Health chiefs in the UK are 'actively investigating' venues visited by six homosexual and bisexual men who tested positive in the past week. They include bars, clubs and saunas, according to an update by the World Health Organization (WHO). Six of Britain's nine confirmed cases are men who have sex with men, which officials say is 'highly suggestive of spread in sexual networks'. A similar pattern has emerged in Europe, where seven gay or bisexual men tested positive in Spain and nine 'mostly young' males in Portugal. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued a direct plea to men to be vigilant for new rashes on their face or genitals.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that he will not reinstate the city's mask mandate. Earlier this week, health officials move the city's Covid risk level up to 'high', and recommended all residents two years or older where masks in public places. The city is already one of the few in America that requires masks on transit and in places like airports and train stations. Deaths in the city have lingered in the single digits for two months now, and hospitalizations caused by Covid decreased as of the last data report.

Dr Tassos Grammatikopoulos, a consultant at King's College Hospital in London who has treated some of the affected children, said the UK 'seems to be passed the peak' of the outbreak. He said cases appeared to spike a few weeks ago and are now trending downwards. However, he noted some new cases are still being spotted.

Researchers at the University of Essex analysed food diaries filled out by over 200 Britons. They then tracked how much energy they actually burned, in order to find any disparity. Results revealed everyone, regardless of their weight, misreported the amount they ate - omitting an average of 900 calories worth of food per day. This is also the equivalent of five pints of lager or seven packs of ready salted crisps. While obese people technically omitted more calories each day than thinner people, they made up for it by burning more energy from moving their heavier bodies while doing day-to-day tasks.

Nearly one in three Americans believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, an Axios/Ipsos survey finds, as the march towards normal life continues. Republicans are most likely to believe the pandemic is a relic of the past, with 70 percent reporting that it is over. More than 60% of Americans report that they have either eaten out, visited a friend and gone shopping at a retail store over the past week as well. The survey comes as cases have jumped 20% over the past week in the U.S., though deaths have cratered 34% over that same period.

Jaiden Ashlea, 23, found out little Levi James had spina bifida - where part of the spinal cord is protruding from the back - at week 18 of her pregnancy. She was originally told to terminate the pregnancy, before finding a hospital in Orlando, Florida, that agreed to operate. At week 24 she underwent the six-hour operation where doctors cut a C-section in her and then made a five to 10cm incision in the uterus to reach and operate on the fetus. Dr Samer Elbabaa, the head of fetal surgery at the hospital, told DailyMail.com this would not cure the baby's spina bifida. But he added it would raise the chances of the child walking normally and reduce the risk of any brain damage.

There were 98 cases of a foreign object - including scalpels and drill bits - left inside patients after procedures in England from April 2021 to March 2022. Vaginal swabs were left in patients 32 times and surgical swabs went undetected 21 times. Some of the other objects included part of a pair of wire cutters, part of a scalpel blade and the bolt from surgical forceps. The data showed our trusts saw four patients each finish surgery with a foreign object left in them - the most for an individual healthcare provider. They were: Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust. Top right: Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham. Bottom right: Royal Liverpool University Hospital, run by Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Natasha Ednan-Laperouse (left), 15, died in 2016 after she suffered a severe allergic reaction to sesame in a Pret baguette. Her parents Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse (right, on ITV's Good Morning Britain today) have launched a new trial to investigate whether commonly available peanut and milk products, taken under medical supervision, can be used as a treatment for people with food allergies.

A care worker from Peterlee County Durham was left briefly unable to breathe after swallowing a Covid test swab. Medics eventually needed to perform surgery to remove the six-inch object. Bobby Lee, 31, said she briefly feared for her life after accidently swallowing the test swab last month. Ms Lee is just one of hundreds of Britons who have reported being hurt while using routine Covid tests, as MailOnline revealed in April. The mother-of-two was home alone with her youngest child in Peterlee County Durham when she decided to test as she was feeling unwell after working a night-shift. However, upon putting the swab in her mouth, it 'twanged back' and got stuck. Unsure of what to do Ms Lee then tried to swallow the swab, but it became lodged part-way down her throat. She then raced to her local A&E where doctors said they had never seen a similar case before. Ms Lee was then transferred to a nearby hospital where she underwent emergency surgery. Surgeons managed to extract the swab using a thin flexible camera to find it and specialised tools to pull the object out back through Ms Lee's mouth.

Only a fraction of sunscreens available in the U.S. actually meet skin protection and environmental standards set by the EWG. Carla Burns, an expert at the EWG, said that the products were created with protection from sunburns in mind, not from skin aging or melanoma. She says products that contain zinc oxide or titanium dioxide as an active ingredient are best, and to avoid oxybenzone. Consumers should also aim for a product between 15 and 50 SPF. Other safety measure people should take when they are out in the sun is to limit exposure and to wear a hat.

Telephone surveys of more than 400,000 people nationwide showed the Magnolia state had the highest rates of obesity followed by West Virginia and its neighbor Alabama. At the other end of the scale people in Colorado, Massachusetts and Hawaii were least likely to be obese - with less than a quarter of adults falling into the category. Experts blamed poor diets, less access to public spaces for exercise and little health insurance coverage in some areas for the obesity crisis - particularly in Mississippi.

Dr MEGAN ROSSI: You're told to 'go with your gut'. You might say you feel 'sick to your stomach'. Excitement can manifest as 'butterflies in your tummy'. These age-old sayings stem from a truth since proven by science - that our gut, and the diverse micro-organisms within it (known as our 'gut microbiota') hold sway over almost every aspect of our health. From our skin health to our mental wellbeing, cancer risk to our experience of menopause, the gut seemingly has a role to play in it all. As a dietitian and gut health researcher at King's College London and in my own clinic, gut health is my bread and butter - and in this new weekly column I'll be sharing the fascinating things I've learnt, with plenty of practical tips, as well as answering your questions, based on the most cutting-edge science.

A young model who spent her teenage years sunbaking with tanning oil only to end up with a deadly melanoma has shared the scar that's left behind from her major surgery to remove it. When Oceana Strachan, who lives in Wollongong on the NSW south coast, first noticed a small bump on her right shin in late 2019, she brushed it off as a pimple or hair follicle. The bump wasn't coloured and it didn't look like a regular mole. She got it checked by a doctor who assured her it was nothing to worry about. Then Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns hit, and Ms Strachan wasn't able to get another skin check for months. By March 2021 the 26-year-old told Daily Mail Australia that she noticed the mole was getting darker and after pushing a different doctor to perform a biopsy, her worst fears came true.

James was born a healthy 8 lb 8 oz on February 23, 2016, and showed no signs of ill-health. 'Everyone commented what a bonny baby he was,' says Susie. Yet two months later, Susie learned that those cuddles had caused irreparable damage to her son's tiny body. James had a rare genetic condition, severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). He was, effectively, born without an immune system, making the mildest cold potentially fatal. If diagnosed at birth, children with SCID can be kept in isolation until they are ready for a bone marrow transplant, which gives them a new, healthy immune system. With this treatment, 90 per cent of so-called 'bubble babies' will have a normal, healthy life, says Bobby Gaspar, an honorary professor in paediatric immunology at University College London.

State data shows of the 670 patients marked as being infected with the virus on Friday, just over two in five were admitted because of the disease - with the rest coming in for another condition such as a broken leg, but were later found to be infected. It suggests the majority of Covid patients are no longer people primarily ill with the disease. But experts warned that the cases were still putting strain on the hospital system. It comes as the U.S. faces a surge in cases nationally with one in five states seeing infections double over the past two weeks. But despite the rise fatalities from the disease fell last week, with about 374 now being recorded every day on average - similar to last summer.

Stuart Woodmansey, from Market Weighton in Yorkshire, claims he hasn't been able to get an appointment 'for years'. Meanwhile, his Brazilian-born wife Kedma, who moved to Britain in 2017, can't even register herself or their son Jacob with a local NHS dentist. It means they have no option but to combine trips to see Mrs Woodmansey's family in Sao Paulo with check-ups. Security consultant Mr Woodmansey said it works out 'much cheaper' than paying privately, despite flights costing up to £700. It comes amid an NHS dentistry crisis which has left desperate patients resorting to 'DIY' procedures.

Married couples vow to battle all of life's tribulations together, and in their 40 years of marriage, Diane and Paul Boothby (pictured left last year and right, on their wedding day in 1978) were no exception. But after successfully raising two children and four grandchildren, the pair have just overcome their biggest challenge yet - they've both beat cancer. Mrs Boothby, 63, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just five months after her husband, 69, was told he had bowel cancer. 'I went from caring for someone with cancer to being someone with cancer - and Paul went from being someone with cancer to caring for someone with cancer,' she said. 'You have to push how you're feeling to get diagnosed - if I'd left it and left it, who knows what could have happened.'

An Australian fitness star who had five babies in less than six years has shared how she got back in shape after just nine weeks. Chontel Duncan, from Brisbane, dropped three kilograms and lost 3.9kg of body mass by taking part in high intensity interval training (HIIT) classes four times a week. But during the two-month transformation, the 32-year-old mum suffered from Covid, a broken foot and sleep deprivation.

They look like high-tech smart speakers or designer coffee tables and come with grand claims they can purge rooms of harmful pollutants, allergens, bacteria, fungal spores and even the Covid virus. Air purifiers - which suck in a room's air and filter it before pumping it back out - are must-haves for health-conscious consumers, it seems. A survey from the Government's Office for Product Safety and Standards found one in 12 Britons owned one. Many said they made the purchase - often costing hundreds of pounds - due to concerns about air pollution and, of course, Covid. So it's not hard to see the appeal.

The East Genomics Laboratory Hub, in the grounds of Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, is one of seven new NHS facilities dotted across England that represent the beating heart of a new battle against one of medicine's most stubborn opponents: cancer. The highly trained scientists here are hunting for hidden clues in the DNA of tumours: tiny mutations in the cells that provide crucial information about what is driving the disease in each individual patient. These mutations can then be matched to a new generation of precision drugs that target specific genetic quirks. This ground-breaking technique, known as genomic testing, is proving game-changing for patients, experts say. At just two years old, Aubrey Line (left, and right, with her family) is one of the youngest people in Britain to benefit from genomics testing. The toddler, from Wootton, Bedfordshire, was 16 months old when scans revealed a tumour had wrapped itself around the heart and aorta - a major artery. Doctors at Addenbrooke's judged it was too dangerous to operate, but were able to carry out whole genomic sequencing in order to find out exactly what sort of cancer it was. (Pictured inset: Linda Beattie, 73, from Guernsey, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in March.)