It never ceases to amaze me how practical, level-headed and together the Australian MSology community is. The following Australian COVID-19 guidelines are the best I have seen to date and in line with my thoughts on this subject.
CoI: multiple
Why are Australian and New Zealand MSologists so sensible?
Your posts are really helping make sense of things, I’m very grateful.
Prof G – Have you seen this article yet? May I have your thoughts?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0819-2
Very interesting, I’ll have a look
An excellent and considered post that does a great deal to contextualise things. Creating order out of chaos. This blog post and this website is like something I have never seen before. Such a careful mix of banter and evidence based opinion. Wow. I’m in the wrong sub-specialty and the wrong lab!
Glad to see my wife’s neurologist is listed as a signatory. She is due for her next course of alemtuzumab in June, right when COVID-19 numbers are expected to peak. We’ll be discussing delaying her treatment if this thing continues to rumble on. Meanwhile, we are both working from home (enforced by our employers) and people continue to panic buy. Our neurologists are smart, the wider Australian population not so much. I watched two people start punching each other over a packet of two minute noodles. I figured if they both died, the worlds collective IQ would go up a couple of points.
There are a large number of signatories to this, how many people contributed to the ABN response,? You seem to be a signatory ProfG, but you seem to think differently. Was there real consenus in the ABN response
The Will Rogers Effect.
I really enjoyed my trip to Australia to talk to the Neuros they were also so welcoming and must I also give a special mention to the lovely MS nurses who made the experience very postive for me.
We are blessed in Australia when it comes to our practitioners and the tools they have access to. I read about the prescribing guidelines in the UK and it boggles my mind.
As a side note, I didn’t realise you had come out to Australia MD. I’ve long had it in mind that I owe you and your team a beer for the sterling work you do in this space. An opportunity missed!
yep 2 times in about 5 months
Should let us know when you are hear next time (although that probably won’t be for a while). Would definitely buy you a beer.
I can’t even get to a local for one….we are thinking of having an online lads and lasses night out…it’ll be the cheapest round ever.
And close colleagues of my neuro… as I am about to do year 2 of cladribine, and recommendations are totally consistent with what I was told 2 weeks ago at my last appointment.
That really is an amazing piece of work. Thanks for sharing that. Very reassuring.
i love seeing how your blog posts are developing over time as scientific cases unfold. It feels so current and so real. Thank you for offering a touch of sanity and reason in a mad situation!
Wonderful! I’ll have to share with my neurologist!
To the New Zealander’s my apologies. I have now changed the post to reflect that it was a combined effort.
In Italy, a patient of mine has tested positive for coronavirus three days ago. She has been on therapy with fingolimod for the last three years. At the moment she is the only component of her family to be absolutely asymptomatic. Her sister has been admitted to hospital due to an interstitial pneumonitis while her husband and her daughter are affected by an upper respiratory syndrome with fever and cough.
Very interesting and raises two questions:
1. Does mild immunosuppression improve outcomes for people infected with SARS-CoV2?
2. Does immunosuppression may you more likely to be a super spreader, i.e. higher viral loads and shedding longer?
We really have no idea how MS and its treatments affect MS outcomes.