Tag: University of Washington

An expert on infectious diseases at the University of Washington School of Medicine is involved in not just one, but two studies that are focusing on potential therapies to nip COVID-19 in the bud.

Get the news brief on GeekWire.

University of Washington researchers are among the leaders of a newly announced clinical trial investigating whether hydroxychloroquine, a drug that’s commonly used to counter malaria and autoimmune disease, can prevent COVID-19.

The multi-site trial, managed by UW in collaboration with New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, aims to determine definitively whether taking the drug can prevent transmission in people exposed to the virus.

“We currently don’t know if hydroxychloroquine works, but we will learn in as short a timeframe as possible what the outcome is,” principal investigator Ruanne Barnabas, associate professor of global health in the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Public Health, said today in a news release.

The trial is due to run for eight weeks, with results expected by this summer.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

If gaps in health care resources aren’t filled, more than 80,000 Americans will die over the next four months due to the coronavirus pandemic, epidemiologists at the University of Washington predict.

The grim forecast — based on an analysis of statistics from the World Health Organization, as well as from national and local governments and hospitals — is laid out today in a research paper that’s being submitted to the MedRxiv preprint server but hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.

Researchers at the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation say their forecast takes current policies on social distancing into account. The problem is that shortages of hospital beds and medical supplies are projected to boost the death toll nevertheless.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

UW Medicine is implementing its plan to deal with a surge of patients with COVID-19 respiratory symptoms, including the erection of tents outside hospital emergency departments for initial screening.

The surge plan should be fully in place by April 1, the University of Washington’s medical system said today in a news release. UW Medicine manages four hospitals in the Seattle area, including Harborview Medical Center, Valley Medical Center, UW Medical Center – Montlake and UW Medical Center – Northwest.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Researchers at the University of Washington are launching a study aimed at answering the question that’s on a lot of people’s minds as the coronavirus epidemic spreads through the Seattle area: How are you holding up?

The King County COVID-19 Community Study, a.k.a. KC3S, is recruiting King County residents to tell their stories. The study is scheduled to collect data through April 19.

“We want to start collecting this information now — as the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding — about how families and communities are being impacted, and how they are adapting,” Nicole Errett, a lecturer in the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, said today in a news release. “Our goal is to understand how individuals are dealing with these new and far-reaching public health response measures and document how communities are rising together to meet unprecedented challenges.”

The results could help researchers and public health officials figure out what works, and what doesn’t, for the current epidemic as well as for future crises.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

UW Medicine patients are getting checked for coronavirus at a drive-through station set up in a hospital clinic’s parking lot.

A similar station was created a couple of weeks ago inside a parking garage at UW Medical Center Northwest, to test employees of the University of Washington’s medical system. The by-appointment-only station was set up near the original site, at the hospital’s outpatient clinic, and began serving high-risk patients on March 16.

“We have already started to do testing in the hospital emergency department and some clinics. But there are a number of our patients who may not be appropriate for sending in to those environments, to minimize the risk of infection to themselves, and perhaps to others,” Thomas Hei, director of outpatient services for UW Medical Center, explained in a UW video about the operation.

Patients can drive to a spot where they roll down the window and have nasal swab samples taken without getting out of the car. The process takes only a few minutes. Samples are then sent to the lab for processing, with results available within a couple of days.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

The University of Washington School of Medicine says its virology lab is now capable of performing 1,000 genetic tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus every day — but all that capacity hasn’t yet fully come into play.

“We’ve performed a little more than 400 tests to date over this week,” Alex Greninger, assistant director of UW Medicine Clinical Virology Laboratories, explained in an email.  “We have much more capacity to perform tests than we are currently receiving.  We perform tests on the specimens we are sent.  Our current capacity in just over a thousand tests per day, and we are building out to perform 4,000 to 5,000 per day.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.