Health Check

News update on the new Omicron variant now in many countries across the world. Plus Hannah Fisher reports on the science of smell and conditions other than Covid where it can be lost. Holly Bradshaw, Olympic pole-vaulter turned psychology researcher discusses the post-Olympic blues with Karen Howells, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology. And could Viagra be a candidate drug for Alzheimer's disease?

This week’s guest is Mathew Fox, Professor of Global Epidemiology from Boston University.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: 3D illustration of coronavirus. Credit: Maksim Tkachenko/Getty Images.)

Omicron Covid variant – what do we know? Claudia examines key questions about the new variant with Professor of Molecular Virology, Jonathan Ball.

Plus growing evidence that pollution has a negative effect on our mental health. And a new way of testing for TB in children.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Image: Microscopic view of influenza virus cells. Photo credit: Panorama Images/Getty Images.)

James Gallagher, BBC health and science correspondent, examines Covid case rates across Europe.

A report on a new study documenting the incidence of Typhoid in three capital cities - Blantyre, Malawi and Kathmandu, Nepal, for the first time - plus updated estimates in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Claudia discusses the role of antibiotic resistance and gets an update on a new vaccine for the disease.

Remembering Professor Sir Michael Rutter, ‘the father of child psychiatry’ who died recently.

And can house work help your memory?

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: A crowded street in Brussels, Belgium in November 2021. Photo credit: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty images.)

New research on how some people had a level of Covid immunity before the pandemic started. Blood samples showed hospital staff being monitored in the first wave already had protective ‘killer’ T-cells probably from exposure to other viruses related to the one that has swept the globe. The difference between antibodies to an infection and antibodies caused by a vaccine. And the extraordinary story of a woman who rid her body of HIV.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: Microbiologist studying coronavirus. Photo credit: Janiecbros/Getty Images)

New antiviral pills to treat Covid are coming thick and fast. Pfizer have just announced their new antiviral Paxlovid in the same week UK’s MHRA was the first country in the world to approve Molnupiravir – Merck’s pill launched last month. So how do the two antivirals compare? And a report from the longest operating milk bank in North America. Since 1974, the Mothers’ Milk Bank in San Jose, California has been collecting breast milk to help nurture vulnerable babies (especially premature ones) at a critical time in their lives. Today it supplies about 500 gallons of breast milk a month reaching over 80% of California’s newborn intensive care units (or NICU’s) and serves eleven hospitals in other U.S. states, as far afield as New York.

Who donates all this milk and how is the milk treated to ensure it’s safe and nourishing for babies?

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: A hand holding pills. Photo credit: Thana Prasongsin/Getty Images.)

An International team of scientists has launched a global hunt for rare people who may be genetically resistant to SARS CoV-2 infection. Individuals who’ve been exposed to the virus living in families where everyone else in the household got infected, who repeatedly tested negative and didn’t mount an immune response. Claudia Hammond speaks to immunologist Evangelos Andreakos, part of the team at the Biomedical Research Foundation in Athens about this fascinating quest. And Claudia hears from Norway about more reassuring research into Covid vaccination in pregnancy.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: A woman walking on the streets of Manhattan, New York City. Photo credit: Lechatnoir/Getty Images.)

New evidence from Sweden and France on the benefits of mixing and matching doses of different types of Covid vaccine. The impact misinformation around treating Covid with Ivermectin is having on the Neglected Tropical diseases where the drug is known to work. And are oat and soy milks as nutritious as cow’s milk?

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: A healthcare worker holds vials of the Covaxin and Covisheld vaccines in Allika Village, India. Photo credit: Pallava Bagla/Corbis/ Getty Images.)

New Covid vaccine from Valneva produces stronger immune response when compared to AstraZeneca, the French company reports, with no severe cases of Covid-19 seen in either group. And new positive research on lateral flow tests.

Plus guest Graham Easton discusses the urgent need for teaching climate and environmental health in medical schools.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: Coronavirus vaccine vials on a laboratory shelf. Photo credit: Joao Paulo Burini/Getty Images.)

Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 from a virulent cervical cancer. A sample of those cancer cells was taken at the time, and the way they behave has changed medical science forever, contributing to everything from the polio vaccine to drugs for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. As the WHO give a posthumous award, Claudia discusses how the Henrietta Lacks legacy raises issues of global health equity.

Plus with a Malaria Vaccine given a historic green light by the WHO to protect children in Africa, what are the distribution difficulties in countries which carry the greatest burden of disease?

And what’s behind the low rate of Covid-19 vaccinations in Taiwan? We hear from one resident about why she’s chosen to have a home-grown Medigen vaccine which hasn’t yet completed all its clinical trials – and another who wants to wait for an alternative. Scientists say that trials about to start in Paraguay should show whether it stimulates enough immunity to protect people in the way the AstraZeneca vaccine does.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Picture: Henrietta Lacks, after whom HeLa cells are named, standing outside her home in Baltimore, USA. Photo credit: Getty Images.)

Trials stopped early of a new Covid antiviral pill, Molnupiravir, as it may cut numbers of people in hospital by about a half. Claudia Hammond discusses the ethical questions of who should be given it. Plus Unicef report on findings about childhood mental health before and during the pandemic. And a new exhibition on the researchers and trial participants outwitting cancer.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

(Photo: An experimental Covid-19 treatment pill called Molnupiravir. Photo credit: Merck/Reuters)