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MONDAY, June 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. National Institutes of Heath announced Saturday that it was stopping a clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, a drug long supported by President Donald Trump as a possible panacea for COVID-19. "A data and safety monitoring board met late Friday and determined that while there was no harm, the study drug was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with COVID-19," the NIH said in a news release. As the agency noted, hydroxychloroquine is a malaria drug that does have antiviral activity. Early in the novel coronavirus pandemic, Trump hailed the drug as a "game-changer" in preventing or treating COVID-19, but large trials quickly began to dispel any hopes it might do so. Still, Trump told reporters that he actually took...

MONDAY, June 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The World Health Organization recorded the largest single-day worldwide increase in coronavirus cases on Sunday, with Brazil and the United States logging the biggest jumps in infections. More than 183,000 new cases were reported around the globe in the past 24 hours, with Brazil's daily tally hitting 54,771 and the United States following closely behind with 36,617 new cases, CBS News reported. More than two-thirds of new COVID-19 deaths were reported in the Americas, the network reported. Experts say rising case counts reflect both more testing, as well as the spread of new infections. In the United States, the resurgence in infections isn't a "second wave," but instead a continuation of the first wave of outbreaks, they noted. "When you...

FRIDAY, June 19, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Children with developmental disabilities or delays have an increased risk of asthma, a new study finds. "This research has shown that it's not just clinicians or pediatricians that should be aware that children with disabilities and delays may also have other health problems. It's also schools, after-school programs and other community-wide programs," said study senior author Sarah Messiah. She's a professor of epidemiology, human genetics and environmental sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health in Dallas. "It's equally important to understand these children may not always be able to communicate their discomfort, especially when it comes to asthma," Messiah added in a university news release. For the study, the researchers analyzed...

FRIDAY, June 19, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Densely populated areas of the United States don't have higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death than less-congested areas, according to a new study. The findings counter the conventional wisdom that the new coronavirus spreads more easily in cities and other densely populated areas. "The fact that density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed COVID-19 death rates is important, unexpected, and profound," said lead author Shima Hamidi. She's an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. For the study, Hamidi and her team analyzed COVID-19 infection and death rates in 913 metropolitan counties nationwide. While density was not significantly...