BBCTwo elderly patients have been in the emergency department of the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast for more than five days, BBC News NI can reveal.

Phil Tragen/The Christie/PA MediaThe first patient in the UK with advanced bowel cancer to receive a liver transplant after the disease spread to it has said she had been given “a second chance at life”.

But the report, on the experiences of 13 patients, found that the drug had no benefit for some people and that some who benefited said the improvement didn’t last.Can Paxlovid treat long Covid? A new report suggests it might help some patients, but which patients might benefit remains unclear.The report, published Monday in the journal Communications Medicine, describes the cases of 13 long Covid patients who took extended courses of the antiviral drug. Results were decidedly mixed: Nine patients reported some improvement, but only five said it lasted. Four reported no improvement at all.Perhaps more than anything, the report underscores that nearly five years after the pandemic began, there is still little known about what can help the millions of people with long Covid. While some people improve on their own or with various therapies and medications, no treatment has yet been shown to be widely successful.“People with long Covid are eager for treatments that can help,” said Alison Cohen, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is an author of the new report and has long Covid herself. “There’s been a lot of research, but it continues to be slow going.”Paxlovid, made by Pfizer, is considered a tantalizing prospect because it can prevent severe illness during active Covid infections and because patients who take the five-day course during the infection have been less likely to develop long Covid later.In addition, a theory that some long Covid cases may be caused by remnants of virus in the body suggests that an antiviral like Paxlovid might vanquish those symptoms by extinguishing lingering virus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The government has unveiled a new pledge to cut the list of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for NHS treatment in England by nearly half a million over the next year.

Some older Americans have come to depend on virtual consultations with doctors, covered by Medicare. To keep that option in the future, Congress will have to act quickly. Since his cancer diagnosis last year, Kent Manuel has regularly seen an oncologist near his home in Indianapolis. It’s been a tough time: After spinal surgery for paralysis caused by his cancer, he is regaining the use of his legs with physical therapy but still uses a wheelchair.Now, Mr. Manuel said, “I’m dealing with pain.” His oncologist recommended palliative care, a medical specialty that helps people with serious illnesses cope with discomfort and distress and maintain quality of life.So in November, Mr. Manuel, 72, a semiretired accountant, started seeing Dr. Julia Frydman, a palliative care doctor. “We talk through what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “She listens to what I have to say. She’s very flexible.”The first two medications she prescribed to reduce pain had troublesome side effects. On the third try, though, “I think we’ve landed on something that’s working,” he said. His pain hasn’t fully abated, but it has diminished.Dr. Frydman, the senior medical director at a cancer care technology company called Thyme Care, works hundreds of miles away in a Manhattan office. She and Mr. Manuel used a video telemedicine link — an option that barely existed in traditional Medicare before the Covid pandemic, thanks to restrictive federal policies.Medicare expanded its telemedicine coverage substantially in 2020, and the expansion has regularly been renewed. That could all have ended on Dec. 31.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A woman who had eight organs removed after being diagnosed with a rare cancer has returned to work.

Getty ImagesWhen you think of new year’s resolutions, a 75-day workout might not top the list.

BBCPlans for an upgraded NHS App to allow more patients in England to book treatments and appointments will be part of a package of measures unveiled by the government on Monday.

Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to at least seven malignancies, including breast cancer. But to add warning labels, Congress would have to act.Alcohol is a leading cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general said on Friday.It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. That perception is embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer. Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The number of people with flu in hospital in England has risen sharply over Christmas, NHS chiefs warn.