We hope the MD1 (Mouse Doctor 1) makes a speedy recovery. He is unfortunately in self-isolation with a high fever and dry cough. He and his wife have both contracted COVID-19. Ware Village Speakeasy, Hertfordshire, linked to spread of COVID-19. Public Health England epidemiologists have tracked down a large cluster of COVID-19 cases to an illegal speakeasy in the Hertfordshire village of Ware...
The impact of COVID-19 in multiple sclerosis: a substudy of the UK MS Register We need to understand more about COVID-19 urgently, and you can help. COVID-19, the coronavirus infection, is devastating the health and jobs of millions around the world, and is now in increasing in the UK with a major impact on all of our lives. People with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) are a susceptible group both due...
These are trying times. The increasing number of Covid-19 cases worldwide and the rapidly expanding hotspots around the globe are only a part of our concern; it is what we don’t know, nor fully yet understand, that scares us the most and remains the focus of research. We’re concerned about the brain in the context of the Covid-19 infection; the potential involvement of the brain can...
A short video putting the COVID-19 epidemic into perspective.
Dear UK person with MSWe are getting a lot of queries regarding coronavirus. Once we have more information we will update you. At the moment the NHS advice is not to book a GP appointment, attend your GP Practice or local hospital if you’ve visited or travelled through mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, or Thailand and have symptoms of cough...
Prof G has been working all weekend responding to reviewer’s comments to a large and very important grant application for the Barts-MS group. Despite us all reassuring him that it will be okay and that the third reviewer has been neutralised he is having sleepless nights. What can we do to help him? We have suggested he watch this parody on YouTube, about scientific peer review, to lift his...
Primum non nocere A guest post from Dr James Stankiewicz, Boston. One of the fundamental tenants of medicine is “Primum non nocere”—First, Do No Harm. In theory this sounds quite easy to accomplish. And at times it can be. A surgeon should not, for example, amputate the left foot when the right foot is problematic one. But at other times it can become quite complicated to know what to do when...
Barts-MS would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas. The Children’s Ward of the London Hospital at Christmas. Image from The Graphic, 30 Jan 1886. Whitechapel Workhouse, Christmas 1874 Scrooge: “Bah, humbug!” Narrator: “Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping...
Dear Professor Gavin Giovannoni Significant increase in the incidence of multiple sclerosis in Iran has been always puzzling. With strong evidence from Danish MS Registry (Nielson et all) early environment rather than ones genetic is the primary etiological agent for Multiple sclerosis. Iran was exposed to this agent much earlier than other Gulf countries. British and Russian troops invaded Iran...
A guest post from Dr Frederick Gay, School of Life Sciences at the University of Essex, Colchester. “There- is- an- underground passage,”,said the Badger impressively,”that leads from the riverbank, quite near here, right up into the middle of Toad Hall.” O nonsence! said Toad rather airily, “You’ve been listening to some of the yarns they spin in the public houses about here.” Kenneth Grahame...