Acute Kidney Injury with Covid-19; Passive Immunisation; Online GPs; face mask interactions

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are a number of complications following infection with Covid-19 that doctors are continuing to find in hospitals. One of the most significant is an acute kidney injury or AKI which can come alongside the disease and NICE has just published rapid guidance to help healthcare staff on the Covid frontline who are not kidney specialists. Inside Health’s Erika Wright has been following staff at Southampton General Hospital during the coronavirus outbreak and meets Kirsty Armstrong, Clinical Lead for Renal Services, to discuss managing kidneys and Covid.

Could injecting blood donated from a patient who has recovered from Covid 19 into someone who is ill help the recipient recover too? It’s a potentially viable treatment with a long history, known as convalescent plasma therapy, and trials of this technique against Covid are beginning around the world. We hear from Jeff Henderson, Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St Louis, on progress in the world’s largest trial of this passive immunisation against the virus in the US, and from James Gill, Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Warwick Medical School, who’s been following the latest game-changing refinement of this therapy.

Just as the rest of us have been getting better at zoom meetings and remembering to unmute ourselves when we want to speak, so have GPs who are now getting rather good at having online consultations. Will this change the way we “go to the doctor” forever or is there sometimes no substitute for face to face contact? Dr Margaret McCartney gives a GP’s insights.

As more people begin to wear face masks what kind of impact does it have on communication when a person’s mouth is covered up and it’s hard to tell whether someone is happy or cross? Claudia discusses this question with George Hu, a clinical psychologist in Shanghai where masks have now become ubiquitous, and Alexander Todorov, Professor of Psychology at Princeton University and author of the book “Face Value : The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions”. Are we more versatile in interpreting a masked person’s mood or intentions than we think?

Producer: Adrian Washbourne

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast,
0:05.4	The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's
0:10.6	Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Ryland, and comedy specials
0:16.2	from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Shranger Nathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncloked.
0:24.3	So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds.
0:30.5	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:34.2	Hi there, this is Claudia Hammond.
0:36.0	Welcome to Inside Health, the Virus from BBC Radio 4,
0:39.8	recorded on May 12th, 2020. Now, in these days of COVID-19, there are, of course, two big hopes medically,
0:46.8	that one day we'll have an effective vaccine against the virus and that we'll find a treatment
0:51.7	that can save the lives of those who become sickest with the disease.
0:55.9	Could taking blood from a patient who's recovered, and injecting part of it into someone who's ill, help them to recover too?
1:03.6	We'll discuss the hopes for convalescent plasma therapy later on.
1:07.9	And a psychological question, as more people begin to wear face masks, what kind of impact
1:13.1	does it have on communication when a person's mouth is covered up and it's hard to tell whether
1:18.1	someone's happy or cross? We are starting with yet another of those complications of infection
1:23.7	with COVID-19 that doctors are finding in hospitals, and that is an acute kidney injury,
1:29.8	or A.K.I., which can come alongside the disease. Nice has just published rapid guidance to help
1:36.1	healthcare staff who are not kidney specialists. Inside Health's Erica Wright has been following
1:41.6	staff at Southampton General Hospital during the coronavirus outbreak, and this is what you've been looking at in your most recent visit. Yes, I've always had a bit of a fascination with kidneys. It may sound a bit odd, but probably connected to the fact that when I was about six, I had a quite nasty kidney infection. So, once better, I like lots of people, then of course took them for granted.
2:02.6	Didn't give them second thought, really. Yeah, I don't think I do either. Exactly. But they silently
2:06.8	work away. I knew they filtered blood getting rid of waste products, but not much else until I made
	...

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