Global Today...

Breastfeeding and COVID-19

WHO recommends that mothers with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should be encouraged to initiate or continue to breastfeed. Mothers should be counselled that the benefits of breastfeeding substantially outweigh the potential risks for transmission...

Smoking and COVID-19

At the time of this review, the available evidence suggests that smoking is associated with increased severity of disease and death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Although likely related to severity, no evidence to quantify the risk to smokers of hospitalization with COVID-19 or of infection by SARS-CoV-2 was found in the peer-reviewed literature. Population-based studies are needed to address these questions...

Criteria for releasing COVID-19 patients from isolation

Based on evidence showing the rarity of virus that can be cultured in respiratory samples after 9 days after symptom onset, especially in patients with mild disease, usually accompanied by rising levels of neutralizing antibodies and a resolution of symptoms, it appears safe to release patients from isolation based on clinical criteria that require a minimum time in isolation of 13 days, rather than strictly on repeated PCR results. It is important to note that the clinical criteria require that patients’ symptoms have been resolved for at least three days before release from isolation, with a minimum time in isolation of 13 days since symptom onset...

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children and adolescents temporally related to COVID-19

As of 15 May 2020, more than 4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including more than 285 000 deaths have been reported to WHO. The risk of severe disease and death has been highest in older people and in persons with underlying noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as hypertension, cardiac disease, chronic lung disease and cancer.1-4 Limited data describe clinical manifestations of COVID-19 that are generally milder in children compared with adults...