Covid-19 dominated health news in 2020, but scientific advances continued. One huge win: A vaccine years in the making finally brought an end in June to the second deadliest outbreak of Ebola, which killed over 2,200 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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The first blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease was launched in 2020, and research continued to hone in on behavioral and lifestyle Interventions to delay the onset of dementia.
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A "game-changing" development in the fight against heart and kidney disease associated with diabetes occurred in 2020 when two newer classes of Type 2 medications -- SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 RAs -- were found to reduce the risk of diabetes-associated cardiovascular events and death.
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A clinical trial published in March showed promise for the investigational drug vericiguat in helping people with worsening heart failure and reducedejection fraction, a measure of how much blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction.
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In 2020, the FDA approved the first treatment for thyroid eye disease, where the eyes push forward and bulge outward, causing eye pain, double vision, light sensitivity or difficulty closing the eye.
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The FDA this year approved a drug for head lice in adults and children older than 6 months. The medication, called XEGLYZE, is a welcome addition to the lice treatment arsenal, as many lice have become resistant to existing treatments.
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The FDA in November recognized sesame seeds as a common allergen, calling upon manufacturers to voluntarily add a warning to products that contain the seeds. Allergy advocates want to go further, calling upon the FDA to mandate the warning on labels.
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There were a number of health stories that fell by the wayside due to global attention on Covid-19. International progress toward bringing the HIV epidemic under control was blown "completely off track" by the novel coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization. New prescriptions of PReP, an HIV-preventive distributed in blister packs, fell 75% during the spring.
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Fear of the novel coronavirus -- and a wish not to overwhelm doctors and hospitals deluged with Covid-19 patients -- kept many people from seeking basic health care. By the first of July, "an estimated 41% of US adults had delayed or avoided medical care including urgent or emergency care (12%) and routine care (32%)" due to Covid-19, the CDC said.
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The Clean Air Act celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, but the celebration was marred by the loss of a number of environmental safeguards. One key sign of climate change was the surge of wildfires that endangered lung health. Some 52,113 wildfires burned 8,889,297 acres in 2020 -- that's 2.3 million more than the 10-year average and almost double the acreage burned in the 2019 season, according to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.
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Use of e-cigarettes is still a health concern, especially among young people, yet the topic has "basically fallen off the radar since Covid-19" arrived, said the American College of Cardiology.
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Studies showed that racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to have severe cases of Covid-19 and were more likely to need to be admitted to intensive care units, put on ventilators or die, according to the CDC.
