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Health officials in Poland reported a record number of coronavirus-related deaths on Friday as the first treatments began for patients at a makeshift hospital in the country’s national stadium. The government reported 445 deaths and 27,086 new infections in its latest report. The caseload was the second highest number of in a single day during the pandemic — second only to Thursday’s total. The figures coincided with the admission of the first patient at a new field hospital located in Warsaw’s National Stadium. The rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases has placed Poland among the 20 most-affected countries in the world.  If the level of infections reaches 70 people per 100,000 or if 30,000 patients are hospitalized, a full national lockdown will take effect, according to the government. The health ministry said the health care system is facing shortages of hospital beds, equipment and medical personnel. The health ministry added that, as of Friday, COVID-19 patients occupied 19,479 of 29,407 available hospital beds and were using 1,703 of 2,238 available ventilators. 
 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions and demands on resources have stifled immunization programs, leading to polio and measles outbreaks among children in the poorest parts of the world.  
At the WHO’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that earlier this year, Africa was certified as free of wild polio, thanks to the coordinated efforts of multiple organizations, governments, and millions of health care workers.  
But he said that since the pandemic hit, regular immunization programs like the one that stopped wild polio in Africa were suspended, leaving children in high-risk areas vulnerable to diseases like polio, measles and pneumonia. He said the agency is now starting to see outbreaks of those diseases.
Tedros said before COVID-19, measles was seeing a resurgence around the world. Last year saw the highest number of new infections in more than two decades. At the same time, he said, poliovirus transmission is expected to increase in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in many under-immunized areas of Africa.  
The WHO director general said failure to eradicate polio now would lead to global resurgence of the disease, and within 10 years, there could be as many as 200,000 new cases annually. 
 
Tedros said the WHO and the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) have launched an emergency appeal to donors worldwide to raise $655 million – $400 million for polio and $255 million for measles – to address dangerous immunity gaps and target age groups.  
He said the world cannot let efforts to fight one dangerous disease allow others to regain a foothold. “While the world watches intently as scientists work to ensure safe and effective vaccines are developed for #COVID19, it is important to ensure that all children receive the lifesaving vaccines that are already available.” 
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Researchers in Australia say a jelly-like sea sponge found along the Great Barrier Reef could provide clues about an elusive part of the human DNA. Their newly released study, which looks at 700 million years of evolution, concludes that elements of the human genome, what scientists describe as “an incredibly complex and ever-changing instruction manual of life,” work in the same way as the genome of the prehistoric sea sponge.Researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney say that while the DNA of humans and these simple, yet highly adaptable aquatic invertebrates are not similar, they do share a comparable set of instructions that control how information contained in a gene is decoded and used. The scientists believe these genetic links have been preserved across millions of years of evolution.Lead researcher Emily Wong said the new study has allowed them to better “read” and understand how our genetic library works.“We focused on sequences in the genome called enhancers, and they are responsible for switching on and off genes,” she said. “We found that similar sequences are deeply conserved all the way from humans to sea sponges. So, that is over 700 million years of evolution. We are really excited about this discovery because it is the first time that such a deeply conserved enhancer has been discovered.”Long before the dinosaurs, the sea sponge was one of the species that dominated life on Earth.The researchers believe that it is not only people that share a genetic link to sea sponges, but most likely the entire animal kingdom.The study could have implications for biomedical advances and health care.A senior researcher said, “the more we know about how our genes are wired, the better we are able to develop new treatments for diseases.”The academic work was a collaboration between various Australian universities and research organizations and has been published in the journal Science.
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