Hospital admissions for maltreatment of children under the age of 2 years declined 31% during the 16-week lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, returning to prepandemic levels after restrictions lifted, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.251317.

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is not associated with autism or other neurodevelopmental problems in children whose mothers received the vaccine immediately before or during pregnancy, according to new research presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) 2026 Pregnancy Meeting™.  

The increased size of, and lesser blood supply to, a key brain structure in patients with Long COVID tracks with known blood markers of Alzheimer’s disease and greater levels of dementia, a new study finds.

Study of over 540,000 people suggests people with obesity are 70% more likely to be hospitalised or die from an infectious disease; people with the most severe obesity face three times the risk.

Applying these risk estimates to global data suggests obesity was linked to one in ten infection-related global deaths in 2023.However, authors highlight estimates of the global impact should be interpreted with caution.

The proportion of infection-related deaths associated with obesity differed between countries, with roughly one in six deaths in the UK an done in four deaths in the US.

Authors warn that given rising global obesity rates, the number of serious infections linked to obesity is likely to grow in the coming decades. 

Obesity significantly increases the risk of hospitalisation and death from most infectious diseases, including flu, COVID-19, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections and respiratory tract infections, suggests a study of 540,000 people published in The Lancet journal. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2025.09.026

 

This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 PLpro inhibitors and RIPK1 inhibitors with synergistic antiviral efficacy in a mouse COVID-19 model.

A temporary weakening of the atmosphere’s chemical capacity to break down methane, combined with elevated emissions from tropical wetlands, drove the sharp increase in atmospheric methane observed in 2020 to 2021, according to a new study. Methane (CH₄) is a significant contributor to atmospheric warming. In the early 2020s, the amount of atmospheric CH₄ grew faster than ever before observed, peaking at 16.2 parts per billion per year (ppb yr^-1), before declining to 8.6 ppb yr^-1 in 2023. It’s hypothesized that this surge was driven by a combination of increased natural emissions and a coincident decrease in the atmosphere’s oxidizing capacity, namely, fewer OH radicals available to chemically break down CH₄ in the atmosphere. However, the main drivers behind this event remain poorly understood, largely due to the difficulty in separating the impacts of changes in CH₄ emissions from changes in oxidizing capacity from OH radicals, particularly during the COVID period when OH precursor emissions were globally reduced. To resolve these uncertainties, Philippe Ciais and colleagues combined atmospheric models and a large suite of bottom-up inventories for various CH₄ sources to update the global and regional CH₄ budget for the period 2019 to 2023. Ciais et al. found that the rapid surge and subsequent decline in CH₄ growth between 2019 and 2023 were primarily driven by changes in the atmosphere’s ability to destroy CH₄, rather than by methane emissions alone. According to the findings, a global drop in OH radicals in 2020 to 2021 – followed by their recovery in 2022 to 2023 – explains about 80% of the year-to-year variation in CH₄ growth rate. The remaining share was largely due to increased CH₄ emissions from wetlands and inland waters, particularly in tropical wetlands in Africa, Asia, and the Arctic. In an accompanying Perspective, Euan Nisbet and Martin Manning discuss the study’s findings in greater detail.

About The Study: This cohort study found that individuals diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and 2021 experienced worse short-term survival than those diagnosed between 2015 and 2019, suggesting substantial harms associated with cancer care disruptions during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.