Outbreak: Lessons from Ebola

11 February 2016

On 6 December 2013 a two-year-old boy called Emile Ouamouno died of a serious illness in a small village in Guinea. A month later Emile’s three-year-old sister, his mother and grandmother were all dead.

This was the start of an Ebola epidemic that swept through West Africa in 2014, killing over 11,000 people and infecting nearly 30,000. The World Health Organization (WHO) called it ‘the largest and the most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976’. An Ebola infection results in high fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, impaired kidney and liver function and, in some cases, internal and external bleeding; fatality rates can be as high as 90%. There are no licensed treatments or vaccines for the disease, and in August 2014 the WHO declared the West African Ebola outbreak ‘a Public Health Emergency of International Concern’.

General anaesthesia should be available for dying patients - medical and ethical experts

21 April 2021

General anaesthesia should be more widely available for patients at the end of their lives, according to Oxford experts in ethics and anaesthesia, according to a paper published by Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists).

COVID-19: does exercising really reduce the risk?

19 April 2021

Human challenge trial launches to study immune response to COVID-19

19 April 2021

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has now been active for a year, not much is known about what happens when people who have already had COVID-19 are infected for a second time.

Alternating vaccines trial expands to include two additional vaccines

14 April 2021

Researchers running the Com-Cov study, launched in February to investigate alternating doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine, have today announced that the programme will be extended to include the Moderna and Novavax vaccines in a new study.

Oxford medical students launch flagship raffle in aid of NHS heroes and lifesaving medical equipment

13 April 2021

Tingewick, a society formed of medical students from Oxford University, are hosting a virtual charity raffle. With over 70 amazing prizes, ranging from Truck festival tickets to restaurant vouchers to bags of books and even a bike, the raffle is an exciting way to celebrate lockdown lifting by supporting many wonderful Oxfordshire businesses whilst raising lots of money for charity.

UK and EU regulators conclude benefits of vaccination continue to outweigh the risks

7 April 2021

Today, the medical regulators in the UK and Europe have announced their conclusions from their reviews of very rare cases of unusual blood clots in people who have received the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.