The COVID-19 pandemic’s most far-reaching impact is its huge toll on people’s mental health. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 23 to 46 percent of healthcare workers experience anxiety symptoms, while 20 to 37 percent have depression. Burnout has also reportedly spiked among the population, even more so heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Control […]
The past two and a half years have been a rollercoaster ride of trials and errors in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the harder obstacles that had to be dealt with was how to keep the workforce afloat while protecting employees not only at work but even as they go home to their […]
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet. As long as people are getting infected, there is a chance that the virus will keep mutating. However, we have come a long way from how things started in 2020. Vaccination, testing, and various treatments have helped us get back to a semblance of normalcy and, most importantly, […]
As the holiday season approaches, it is expected that the number of COVID-19 cases in the country will once again spike. Omicron continues to be the dominant variant, and unfortunately, new subvariants have cropped up anew: XBB, which is a recombinant of BJ.1 (of the BA2.10.1 sublineage) and BM.1.1.1 (of the BA.2.75 sublineage); and BQ.1.1, […]
The COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to consider other ways of gaining knowledge and acquiring skills, especially in medicine. While many things came to a halt in the ‘new normal,’ health faculties continuously tried to find innovative ways to prepare the next generation of doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners. These past two years have […]
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports road traffic injuries as the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29. Approximately 1.3 million people die each year because of road traffic crashes. Over half of all these road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Nearly 30% of all […]
Globally, at least 2.2 billion people have near or distant vision impairment. In half of these cases, vision impairment could have been prevented. Myopia, or near-sightedness, is the most common ocular disorder worldwide. It is also the leading cause of visual impairment in children. Its incidence has increased rapidly and has become a major public […]
Experts have noticed an increasing number of individuals with asymptomatic liver disease and abnormal liver profile tests. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can remain benign but also progress to severe conditions like cirrhosis and liver failure. Some of the risk factors and co-morbidities of COVID-19 include the linkage of NAFLD with obesity, diabetes, and dyslipidemia-metabolic […]
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 4,700 new childhood cancer cases in the Philippines annually. Forty percent of these cases are leukemia—a treatable condition, especially during early diagnosis and with consistent chemotherapy. Unfortunately, 1,700 children still die from leukemia each year in our country. Compounding this are unseen impacts of COVID-19 […]
COVID-19 can have severe effects on people with immunity problems. They are part of the group of immunocompromised individuals who must be vaccinated and provided with additional protection, even more than the general population. There are more than 400 types of immunodeficiencies that have been identified. Some people have inborn immunity errors (IEI), while other immunodeficiencies manifest […]
