Public Health

With India preparing to make residents 18 and older eligible for a coronavirus vaccine starting Saturday, Dr. Aqsa Shaikh emailed the country’s largest drug manufacturer this week asking for doses for the vaccination center she runs in New Delhi.

The response was not encouraging: The company, the Serum Institute of India, said it was so overwhelmed by demand that it could take five or six months for Dr. Shaikh to get the 3,000 doses per month she requested.

“When I read that email, images of mass burials appeared in front of my eyes,” she said. “We may have to shut down the center now if the government doesn’t chip in.”

COVID-19 Scan for Apr 26, 2021 CIDRAP

Men under 50 recovering from asymptomatic COVID have double the likelihood of acute ischemic strokes (AIS) compared with men of the same age without COVID infection, according to a study last week in JAMA Network Open.

Eighteen South Asian men were treated in Singapore for AIS a median of 54.5 days after their initial COVID-19 diagnosis. Twelve (67.7%) had no known pre-existing risk factors. While AIS is a known neurologic complication from symptomatic COVID-19, none of these men experienced respiratory symptoms during their infection.