Health Check

Oxford University and Astrazeneca announced interim results from the phase 3 trial of their coronavirus vaccine. The results are promising with efficacy scores ranging from 70% to possibly 90%, depending on the dose of the first of the two inoculations. This vaccine also remains viable when stored at refrigerator temperatures – a logistical advantage compared to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Claudia consults Charlie Wheeler, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust, about how this vaccine may advance the ambition of protecting the world from Covid-19.The pandemic has disrupted routine health services in many countries. Maternity services for pregnant women and women in labour have not escaped restrictions. In the UK this has included banning partners from clinics and wards, often for most of labour. Dr Samara Linton reports.High levels of lead exposure in childhood result in smaller, less robust-looking brains in middle age. This is the conclusion of a long-running study of hundreds of people who grew up in the town of Dunedin in New Zealand. They have been followed since their childhoods in the early 1970s, during the era of leaded petrol. At the age of 45, more than 550 of them have had MRI brain scans. This part of the research has been led by Aaron Reuben and Maxwell Elliot at Duke University in the United States. Although leaded petrol is banned in all but one country today, hundreds of millions of children are still exposed to environmental lead levels well above what’s regarded as safe.Epidemiologist Matthew Fox of Boston University also joins Claudia to talk about the disappointing covid antiviral drug remdesivir, coronavirus rapid tests and a flu vaccine grown in plants.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker(Picture: Laboratory technicians in Italy handle capped vials as part of filling and packaging tests for the large-scale production and supply of the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine. Photo credit: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images.)

Global measles deaths were already at a 23 year high in 2019 after several years of inadequate immunisation levels in a number of countries around the world. The coronavirus pandemic looks set to make matters worse. The World Health Organisation is worried that disruptions to measles vaccination programmes this year in Africa have substantially raised the risk of large outbreaks in many countries. Immunisation coverage needs to be maintained at 95% or more to keep measles suppressed. Too many babies have missed routine measles vaccination at 9 months and planned special immunisation campaigns in areas where the coverage was already too low pre-Covid had to be cancelled. We talk to paediatrician Ifedayo Adetifa at the Kemri Wellcome research programme in Kenya who’s been modelling outbreak scenarios in Kenya of this situation. The risk of large outbreaks of measles in Kenya is now much greater, and likely to be worse in other countries in the region. But mounting vaccination campaigns as soon as possible would reduce the risk to zero.Sian Griffiths reports from a Canadian school in Quebec which is in the middle of a Covid-19 red zone. The school’s principal decided to move classes outdoors to reduce the infection risk to pupils and staff. Many lessons are happening in three big wedding marquees erected in the school grounds, and the principal plans to keep this going through the Canadian winter.A new study in BMJ Global Health identifies a widely unrecognised danger to the hundreds of millions of people (mainly women) who have to leave their homes to fetch water for their households. This is physical injury. A survey of more than 6,000 households in 24 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America found that about 15% of them have been injured while fetching water for the family. The researchers were shocked by this. Injuries include broken limbs, dislocations, lacerations and burns. Northwestern University’s Sera Young says the causes range from falling over while carrying the water, falling into wells, physical assault, animal attacks and road accidents between the home and communal water sources. Family doctor Ann Robinson is Claudia’s guest this week to talk about measles, the Moderna Covid vaccine and the latest results from trials of polypills.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker(Picture: Children outside a field clinic during a vaccination program against measles in Bangui in 2014. Photo credit: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.)

Health Check examines the excitement around the preliminary announcement of 90% effectiveness of BioNTech and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in its phase 3 clinical trial. Claudia Hammond talks to Professor Gregory Poland, head of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic in the United States about what we do and don’t know about the vaccine at this stage, and how the vaccine may be approved and deployed in the coming months. She consults Kalipso Chalkidou, Professor of Global Health Practice at Imperial College London, about the challenges of getting this vaccine to people in low and middle income countries. One logistical problem is that the vaccine has to be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsuis. BBC medical and science correspondent James Gallagher also joins Claudia to explain the innovative nature of the vaccine and how its interim success bodes well for the development of other coronavirus vaccines. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker(Picture: Medications in sealed vials with a disposable plastic medical syringe. Photo credit: GIPhotoStock/Getty Images.)

Some of the first large scale trials of Covid-19 vaccines may report results to regulators in the next few weeks. These first results will reveal how effective these vaccines are at preventing mild Covid illness but they’re unlikely to tell us how good they are at preventing serious disease and death. Should governments permit wide scale vaccination of populations based on that level of data when this may compromise learning more about their efficacy? And might widespread deployment of first generation Covid-19 vaccines make it harder to properly trial vaccines at earlier stages of development but which may have the potential to be more effective? Claudia Hammond discusses the dilemmas with Dr Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Vaccine Research Group. People who are double-jointed are much more prone to suffering from anxiety and panics attacks. Reporter Madeleine Finlay investigates the link.Claudia consults mental health experts for tips to help people get through the coming months of uncertainty and anxiety.Boston University epidemiologist Matthew Fox joins Claudia with insights on vaccine hesitancy, how Namibia is maintaining its HIV treatment services under Covid-19 restrictions and whether antibiotics can prevent surgery for appendicitis.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker(Picture: A doctor preparing a coronavirus vaccine. Photo credit: Filippo Bacci/Getty Images.)

For months now, many people hospitalised with Covid-19 have been given convalescent plasma – donated blood serum from people who’ve already had the illness. The hope has been that transfusing donated antibodies against the coronavirus will help to prevent deaths and serious illness. Convalescent plasma therapy received a high profile boost in the USA in August when the Trump administration announced emergency use authorisation for the treatment, despite the lack of robust evidence for its efficacy against the coronavirus. Now the results of the first completed randomised clinical trial of the therapy have been published in the British Medical Journal. The findings are not particularly encouraging. In this Indian study, there was no difference in the death rate or the progression from moderate to severe disease between patients given the therapy and those receiving only standard care. Claudia Hammond talks to Dr Aparna Mukherjee of the India Council of Medical Research and the BBC’s medicine and science correspondent James Gallagher about the prospects now for convalescent plasma therapy. Health Check also asks whether vaccines against other diseases might provide some protection against the coronavirus, and features a report from California where a lot of mental health counselling has gone online or on the phone since the pandemic took hold. Reporter Alison Van Diggelen asks people with mental health problems and their therapists how they feel about the loss of face-to-face sessions. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker(Picture: An Iraqi phlebotomist holds a bag of plasma donated by a recovered Covid-19 patient. Photo credit: Asaad Niazi/AFP/Getty Images.)

As South Africa goes into lockdown what measures are they taking? Plus big data in Taiwan and a round-up of drug trials, antibody testing and low cost ventilators.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald(Image: Microscopic view of influenza virus cells. Photo credit: Panorama Images/Getty Images.)

Many people with autistic spectrum disorder learn techniques to overcome their difficulties interacting with others. The first study that has looked at the consequences of these compensatory strategies reveals some benefits but also significant downsides. The consequences can be stress, low self-esteem, mental illness and misdiagnosis. Claudia talks to lead researcher Professor Francesca Happé from King’s College London and Eloise Stark, a woman with autism.A new research programme at Imperial College London is investigating the link between obesity and infertility in men. Madeleine Finlay explores why weight gain and other factors of modern life might be influencing men’s sperm health.Tick-borne Lyme disease is on the rise in the northern hemisphere. Lyme disease can develop into a serious illness. It is hard to diagnosis early and delayed diagnosis means lengthy treatment and recovery. Dr Mollie Jewett at the University of Central Florida is working on a much faster means of diagnosis, and a more effective treatment. Deborah Cohen meets Dr Jewett and her ticks.Graham Easton is in the Health Check studio to talk about links between hearing loss and dementia, and the worrying spread of bacteria resistant to carbapenems, one of the most important kinds of antibiotic drugs. (Photo caption: A young woman standing in the middle of a crowded street – credit: Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from Dr Graham Easton.Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Claudia Hammond visits the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.Every year a minority of births goes wrong and the baby is deprived of oxygen, which can lead to long-term brain damage and conditions such as cerebral palsy. Early treatment can reduce the likelihood of permanent disability or even death, so a team at University College London have now developed a new portable device which uses harmless infra-red to detect signs of brain injury in newborn babies, minutes after birth. It is called Cyril and consultant neurologist Subhabrata Mitra and Dr Ilias Tachtsidis, Reader in Biomedical Engineering, demonstrate it to Claudia.Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a well-known problem, with one insidious thriving place being medical implants, where they form impenetrable biofilms. But there could be a solution from scientists at Nottingham University. Kim Hardie, a molecular microbiologist, is part of a team that has developed special slippery coatings for biomedical devices, such as catheters, that stop bacteria attaching and sticking in the first place. It is hoped these super biomaterials will help in the fight against super bugs, which has huge implications for infection rates in hospitals globally.It is estimated that one in nine people experience some form of breathlessness, which is most common in conditions such as heart failure, lung disease, panic disorder and Parkinson’s. But there are also significant numbers of people who suffer from breathlessness which cannot be explained. A team at Oxford University hypothesise this might be driven by networks in the brain. So using brain scans and computational modelling, Breathe Oxford has examined breathlessness in athletes, healthy people and those with chronic lung disease, seeking clues as to why some individuals become disabled by their breathlessness, while others with the same lung function live normal healthy lives. Claudia discusses this relationship between breathlessness and brain perception with lead researcher and anaesthetist Professor Kyle Pattinson and research scientist Sarah Finnegan. They also, using a ‘Steppatron’, demonstrate what it is like to live with a chronic lung condition. Mirror-touch synaesthesia is a rare type of synaesthesia where people can actually feel something that they can see being done to someone else. For example they might seem to feel a brush on their hand whilst watching someone else having their hand stroked. Dr Natalie Bowling from the University of Sussex researches this condition. It is estimated that 30% of the population could experience some form of synaesthesia and Claudia also meets Kaitlyn Hova, a violinist with visual-auditory synaesthesia. She demonstrates her violin, which lights up with different colours according to how she sees the notes. (Photo caption: Members of the MetaboLight team working together to develop novel light technologies to assess brain injury severity in newborns within hours after birth - credit: MetaboLight) Producer: Helena Selby