COVID: 19: Can You Catch COVID-19 Through Your Eyes?

COVID: 19: Can You Catch COVID-19 Through Your Eyes? You can catch COVID-19 if an infected person coughs or sneezes and contagious droplets enter your nose or mouth. But can you become ill if the virus lands in your eyes?

 Virologist Joseph Fair, PhD, an NBC News contributor, raised that concern when he became critically ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

From a hospital bed in his hometown of New Orleans, he told the network that he had flown on a crowded plane where flight attendants weren’t wearing masks. He wore a mask and gloves, but no eye protection. “My best guess,” he told the interviewer, “was that it came through the eye route.”

Asked if people should start wearing eye protection, Fair replied, “In my opinion, yes.” The clear tissue that covers the white of the eye and lines the inside of the eyelid, known as the conjunctiva, “can be infected by other viruses, such as adenoviruses associated with the common cold and the herpes simplex virus.

There’s the same chance of infection with SARS-CoV-2, says Duh. “If there are droplets that an infected individual is producing by coughing or sneezing or even speaking, then the front of the eyes are directly exposed, just like the nasal passages are exposed. In addition, people rub and touch their eyes a lot. So there’s certainly already the vulnerability.

More communication needed regarding disposal of pet pharmaceuticals.

More communication needed regarding disposal of pet pharmaceuticals.New research found that more than 60 percent of veterinary care professionals do not counsel their clients when it comes to the environmental stewardship aspect of medicine disposal. New research from Oregon State University found that more than 60 percent of veterinary care professionals do not counsel their clients when it comes to the environmental stewardship aspect of medicine disposal -- findings that are troublesome but also represent an opportunity to dramatically reduce watershed contaminants. "People are just starting to understand the impact that discarded pharmaceuticals and personal care products have on the environment," said the study's corresponding author, Jennifer Lam, who worked on the research while a graduate student in marine resource management at Oregon State University.

Bacteria as pacemaker for the intestine

Bacteria as pacemaker for the intestine.For the first time, scientists have been able to prove that the bacterial colonization of the intestine plays an important role in controlling peristaltic functions. Spontaneous contractions of the digestive tract play an important role in almost all animals, and ensure healthy bowel functions. Now, for the first time, a research team from the Cell and Developmental Biology (Bosch AG) working group at the Zoological Institute at Kiel University (CAU) has been able to prove that the bacterial colonization of the intestine plays an important role in controlling peristaltic functions. The scientists published their results derived from the example of freshwater polyps Hydra -- in the latest issue of Scientific Reports.

GENOMICS, FOOD AND DISEASE PREVENTION.

Eighty per cent of the global disease burden is preventable, Maloof, a health optimisation practitioner, told the audience at WIRED Health, and a large part of that is down to bad diet. Dr Molly Maloof keeps the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley in peak physical condition, but you won't find many pills on her prescriptions. An appointment with Maloof is usually rounded up with a new Instagram to check out and five app recommendations ,that's because she believes that food is the best medicine. The diabetes epidemic is so bad that the UK public health journal The Lancet branded it a "public health humiliation." Type two diabetes is perhaps the most prevalent preventable disease – in 2013, 5.1 million people died from diabetes and there are as many as 382 million people currently living with the disease, costing the global economy billions of pounds. Maloof believes the answer is simple, there is a need to treat the root cause of our disease with better food. Although our bodies tell us that doing the wrong thing feels right and doing the right thing feels wrong,since the body is used to sugar/sweets overload. Maloof, said using drugs to control body weight only exacerbates the problem. Statins are commonly prescribed to limit blood cholesterol and lower the risk the risk of heart attacks and strokes, but are also associated with an 12 per cent increased risk of diabetes. "Are people trading a heart attack for diabetes?" said Maloof. A visit to Maloof,she usually prescribes a strict regimen of boxed meal kits (such as Hello Fresh), fresh produce and inspirational food Instagrams. In most people, it's simple changes over time that have the biggest result. Maloof's recommendations are openly available on the internet,but her secret weapon is Nutrigenomics. Maloof uses data from genome sequencing companies like 23andMe to produce a diet plan that she claims is unique to your genetic makeup. She also runs micronutrient tests that identify the nutrients her patients are low on and then provides a bespoke diet plan to supplement those deficiencies. Add in quarterly data from blood, saliva and stool samples, and Maloof said she can create a diet plan that responds to minute changes within your body. "The real blockbuster drug of this century is the activated patient," said Maloof. "They have to want better health." The patients have to take control over their own diets to really reap the benefits and there are no quick wins. culled from wired.co.uk

The first VR surgery goes live

In his office on the first floor of The Royal London Hospital, Dr Shafi Ahmed keeps a classic Polaroid instant camera. Every time he meets a new trainee surgeon, Ahmed draws the camera out and takes a picture of them. The pic is printed straight away, and I put it in my diary," says Ahmed, a jovial 47-year-old with a mellow voice and an Apple Watch around his wrist. "Then I ask the trainees what they think they'll be doing in ten to twenty years, and I write it under their picture." If you wonder what Ahmed thinks he'll be doing in ten years, look no farther than his desk, currently piled with several unassembled Google Cardboards. In Ahmed's future, and in his vision of the future of surgery at large, VR will feature prominently. On 14 April, Ahmed – a surgeon, cancer specialist, and co-founder of virtual and augmented reality firm Medical Realities – is going to cut off a tumour from the colon of a London man in his 70s. That's a routine operation with no particular risk attached. But unlike any other operation, when Ahmed and his team remove the cancer, a 360-degree camera rig mounted over the operating table will capture the doctors' every movement in 4K and livestream it globally in VR. The broadcast will be available online and via apps for Android and iOS. Medical students, surgeon wannabes or anybody who wants to see and hear what goes on in an operating theater will be able to follow the two-hour intervention at close quarters, using Medical Realities' mobile app and a Cardboard headset. The video's main star, the patient, has consented to the initiative, and Ahmed describes him as "very supportive of how we are trying to teach medicine around the world." To stave off the grim eventuality of broadcasting an operation going awry, Ahmed explains that the video stream will be delayed by about one minute. "The operation isn't very risky, but if there's a major complication I'll stop [the stream] immediately," he says. "But it's also important that people who are training in medicine see problems. There is not perfect operation, ever. If we have some complications, you have to see how to deal with them." As a proud gadget geek – there's a hoverboard next to his office door.An associate Dean at Barts and the London Medical School, Ahmed has spent years experimenting with how consumer technology can benefit healthcare. In 2013, he pestered Google for months until he got hold of a pair of Google Glass, and grabbed headlines by using them to live-stream the removal of a liver cancer from a surgeon's POV. About 13,000 students from 113 countries tuned in, sending Ahmed questions that popped up on the lower corner of his Glass – to which he replied by simply speaking out loud. When AR and VR started to take off, Ahmed realized they could radically change the way surgery was taught, and solve a health equity crisis on the side. A 2015 report by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery revealed that about five billion people worldwide didn't have access to safe surgery. If that is to change, a global shortage of some two million surgeons, anesthetists and obstetricians will need to be trained over the next 15 years. Thousands of medicine students can be trained by someone in Harvard, or in London, or in Rome. All they need is a smartphone's 3G or 4G connection. That's not just wishful thinking. Medical Realities, the company Ahmed founded in early 2015 together with VR innovator Steve Dann, is currently working to launch software that will enable Ahmed to teach remotely using 360-degree streaming and AR. Ahmed is also considering swapping his Google Glass with a new model of AR specs developed by San Francisco-based Osterhout Group. I recently went to Gaza to talk about how to raise health standard in a country that's barricaded. I thought: 'How do we free this people's minds?'," Ahmed says. "Now, with these technologies, I can regularly teach surgery to Gaza medicine students. I'll be part of a medical school there, but I'll be teaching from here remotely." VR could change traditional surgery training the West, too. Ahmed argues that the operating theatre's makeup hasn't really changed for centuries, and today students end up craning their necks for hours just to catch a vague glimpse of the action over the surgeon's shoulder. culled from wired.co.uk