When COVID-19 started depleting stockpiles of medical gear in hotspots like New York and New Jersey, the West Virginia National Guard took notice – and reached out to experts at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University to help prevent that from happening in the Mountain State.
President Gordon Gee sent a letter Thursday (April 23) to the West Virginia University campus community calling on Mountaineers to “stay the course and take pride in knowing that we are adapting in ways we never thought possible.”
The WVCTSI’s COVID-19 registry, created by Dr. Sally Hodder and Wes Kimble, contains more than 7,500 negative cases and 450 positives from individuals tested through the WVU Medicine system.
WVU Medicine pediatric and adult allergist and immunologist Brian Peppers, D.O., Ph.D., has received Investigational New Drug approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the experimental treatment of COVID-19 using convalescent donor plasma. This is the first FDA approved Investigational New Drug trial for COVID-19 immunotherapy to include pediatric patients.
When the director of West Virginia University’s Innovation Hub heard about a massive mask making effort underway next door at the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resource and Design, he knew engineers in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Natural Resources could help.
Tests of more than 100 residents and workers associated with West Virginia University’s Evansdale Residential Complex have been completed, with only one additional resident testing positive for COVID-19.
A global pandemic, a worried wife and a campus that, like its home state, is full of connections, were the impetus for protective devices that were created at West Virginia University and are now being used by a variety of health care professionals at J. W. Ruby Memorial Hospital.
The gift from Dr. and Mrs. John Mikita, of Hilton Head, S.C., will support a general radiology room on the hospital’s fourth floor, a diagnostic hub that will also house laboratory, CT, MRI, ultrasound and other imaging resources. The general radiology room will be named for the Mikitas in recognition of their gift.
Dr. Jeremiah Hayanga, ECMO program director at the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute, has been appointed as a special advisor by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Eric D. Hargan.
Telemedicine may make it easier for some patients to see a nurse or doctor while stay-at-home orders are in place, but that isn’t the case for everyone. Some older people may find the technology particularly challenging. Kimberly Wallace—a Ph.D. candidate in the WVU School of Nursing and nurse practitioner with the WVU Medicine Section of Nephrology—and colleagues are working to accommodate their needs.