Antibody injections could fight COVID-19 infections – an infectious disease expert explains the prospects
by ilene - June 1st, 2020 2:58 pm
Antibody injections could fight COVID-19 infections – an infectious disease expert explains the prospects
Antibodies (pink) attacking a virus particle (blue). STEVEN MCDOWELL/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Courtesy of Dimiter Stanchev Dimitrov, University of Pittsburgh
Antibodies are part of us – literally.
We have billions of them in our bodies with a combined weight of about 100 grams, or about the weight of a bar of soap. If there are so many antibodies inside our bodies then they must be safe and very important, right?
Indeed, antibodies are perhaps the safest type of therapy and have many important functions. One of them is to protect and cure infections caused by viruses. The human immune system can produce antibodies specific for each type virus that bind strongly to the virus and block it from infecting our cells – so-called neutralizing antibodies.
I am an infectious disease scientist and am interested in antibody therapeutics because they are a relatively safe way to prevent severe disease and save lives, particularly when a new, deadly virus emerges.
To stop the spread of COVID-19, billions of people will need to have antibodies to protect against the new coronavirus. So the question is how can we isolate and produce neutralizing antibodies in large enough quantities to serve everyone who needs them, including research laboratories and pharmaceutical companies?
What are antibodies?
Our immune system makes antibodies in response to a foreign pathogen, whether that be a bacterium, virus or fungi.
Antibodies are Y-shaped blood proteins made by white blood cells called “B cells.” They neutralize pathogens by attaching to their surface, blocking them from entering our cells and signaling our immune system to clear the pathogen from our bodies.
Humans have all sorts of different antibodies floating around inside us at any given time looking for foreign pathogens to attack. When a specific virus, such as SARS-CoV-2, infects our bodies, our immune system will try to produce enough specific antibodies against it before the infection becomes overwhelming.
This process can happen faster and be more successful in preventing infection if we already have existing antibodies against the pathogen.
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Does nicotine protect us against coronavirus?
by ilene - May 31st, 2020 7:20 pm
Does nicotine protect us against coronavirus?
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Courtesy of Adrian Bauman, University of Sydney; Leah Shepherd, University of Sydney, and Melody Ding, University of Sydney
If you noticed headlines recently suggesting smoking could protect against COVID-19, you might have been surprised.
Smokers seem less likely than non-smokers to fall ill with coronavirus — Nicotine may play an indirect role that makes it harder for the virus to gain to access cells https://t.co/Psx0uMjy6g
— Alfons López Tena (@alfonslopeztena) May 4, 2020
After all, we know smoking is bad for our health. It’s a leading risk factor for heart disease, lung disease and many cancers. Smoking also reduces our immunity, and makes us more susceptible to respiratory infections including pneumonia.
And smokers touch their mouth and face more, a risk for COVID-19 infection.
Initial observational findings suggested a history of smoking increased the risk of poor outcomes in COVID-19 patients, as the World Health Organisation and other bodies have identified.
But a recent paper which examined smoking rates among COVID-19 patients in a French hospital hypothesised smoking might make people less susceptible to COVID-19 infection.
So what can we make of this?
What the study did
This study was a cross-sectional survey where the researchers assessed the exposure (smoking) and the outcome (COVID-19) at the same time. This type of research design can’t prove the exposure causes the outcome – only that there may be an association.
There were two groups included in the study – 343 inpatients treated for COVID-19 from February 28 to March 30, and 139 outpatients treated from March 23 to April 9. Among other data collected, participants were asked whether they were current smokers.
The researchers compared smoking rates in both groups with smoking rates in the general French population.
The results
The study found 4.4% of inpatients and 5.3% of outpatients with COVID-19 were smokers, after adjusting for differences in age and sex.
This was only a fraction of the prevalence…
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Is COVID-19 a Blood Vessel Disease?
by ilene - May 31st, 2020 5:54 pm
Worth reading, the theory presented here is strongly supported by the evidence.
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Antigen tests for COVID-19 are fast and easy – and could solve the coronavirus testing problem despite being somewhat inaccurate
by ilene - May 29th, 2020 12:16 pm
Antigen tests for COVID-19 are fast and easy – and could solve the coronavirus testing problem despite being somewhat inaccurate
Antibodies are incredibly good at finding the coronavirus. Antigen tests put them to work. Sergii Iaremenko/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Courtesy of Eugene Wu, University of Richmond
In late February, I fell ill with a fever and a cough. As a biochemist who teaches a class on viruses, I’d been tracking the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Inevitably I wondered: Did I have COVID-19, or did I have the flu?
At the time, COVID-19 testing was very restricted but I knew I could get quickly tested for the flu. I drove myself to an urgent care clinic, the nurse easily checked my temperature and took a throat swab and 30 minutes later I got the results: positive for influenza.
The flu test I took is a type of viral screening called a rapid antigen test that looks for viral proteins. For the flu, these antigen tests are easy to administer, decently accurate and give results almost immediately.
Widespread testing for SARS–CoV–2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is critical to knowing if, when and how people can start to return to their normal lives. An antigen test for the coronavirus could be a huge help in expanding testing.
On May 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first antigen test for emergency use in the U.S. These tests are starting to be available across the country and could dramatically change the COVID-19 testing landscape when they become widely available.
What is an antigen?
The human immune system, and in fact the immune systems of most vertebrates, work on a simple idea: Any protein in your body that isn’t encoded by your own genes is probably from a pathogen and should be captured and destroyed.
When the immune system detects a foreign protein, your white blood cells, specifically your B-cells, create antibodies to trap and destroy these proteins. Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that use their arms as grabbers for foreign proteins. The first round of antibodies aren’t particularly well matched to the shape of…
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How coronavirus contact tracing works in a state Dr. Fauci praised as a model to follow
by ilene - May 28th, 2020 5:33 pm
How coronavirus contact tracing works in a state Dr. Fauci praised as a model to follow
Pairing widespread testing with fast, effective contact tracing is considered essential for controlling the coronavirus’s spread as the U.S. passes 100,000 deaths. AP Images/Rick Bowmer
Courtesy of Jenny Meredith, University of South Carolina
After weeks of keeping people home to “flatten the curve,” restrictions on U.S. businesses are loosening and the coronavirus pandemic response is moving into a new phase.
Two things will be critical to keep COVID-19 cases from flaring up again: widespread testing to quickly identify anyone who gets the virus, and contact tracing to find everyone those individuals might have passed it to.
It’s a daunting task, but states are working hard to take the necessary steps to reopen safely. When Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, explained that task to the U.S. Senate recently, he pointed to South Carolina as a model for the country, one that he would “almost like to clone.”
So, what is South Carolina getting right?
Part of it has to do with contact tracing. Since early March, when South Carolina’s first coronavirus case surfaced, investigators have reached out to every person who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the state, and all of the people they came into close contact with. To help prevent the virus from spreading farther, they hired 1,800 additional workers who will follow up with those contacts each day for 14 days to make sure they haven’t become ill.
Fauci’s compliment didn’t surprise me. I spent the first nine years of my career as a public health microbiologist in South Carolina at the Department of Health and Environmental Control’s State Public Health Laboratory. South Carolina already had disease reporting requirements in place and the cutting-edge laboratory technology needed for testing. Together with skilled epidemiologists, these laid the groundwork for an effective response to a pandemic that, nationwide, has now claimed more than 100,000 U.S. lives.
Knowing where to look
The first step was scaling up testing…
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Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: A new review of several studies shows flaws in research and no benefit
by ilene - May 28th, 2020 2:33 pm
Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: A new review of several studies shows flaws in research and no benefit
President Trump says he has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive for the coronavirus. Getty Images / Drew Angerer
Courtesy of C. Michael White, University of Connecticut
President Donald Trump revealed on May 18, 2020 that he was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent contracting COVID-19. News media reports run the gamut from saying hydroxychloroquine is 91% effective to it being both ineffective and dangerous. How do people know what to believe?
Our Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evidence Synthesis (HOPES) group at the University of Connecticut has conducted many high profile projects in the past, studying conditions such as cystic fibrosis and asthma. We published an assessment on May 27, 2020, of all of the controlled studies that have been conducted around the world through May 8, 2020, in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Like our other projects, we used search strategies and methods that are sanctioned by international bodies like the Cochrane Group to determine whether hydroxychloroqune was effective and safe. Based on the media reports you have heard, the results may surprise you.
There are no controlled studies, says the author, that assess the use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent the coronavirus. Getty Images / AFP / George Frey
What did we find?
We focused our assessment on controlled studies, those that compare the effects of a drug in one group versus those who did not receive therapy in another. This is critical when establishing the effectiveness of a therapy because without it, the results are meaningless. If 100 people took hydroxychloroquine and 10 died, it could mean that therapy was great if 20 were going to die without it but horrible if two were going to die.
The first thing we found is that there are no controlled studies assessing the use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent getting COVID-19. So there is no evidence one way of the other that you can prevent COVID-19 by taking hydroxychloroquine.
We did find 14…
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Trump Vaccine Czar Still Stands to Profit
by ilene - May 26th, 2020 7:03 pm
Will there really be several hundred million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, which would be record fast vaccine develop, or is this just wishful thinking? Moncef Slaoui, former executive at GlaxoSmithKline and board member of Moderna (till recently) and newly appointed Trump official, says the vaccine will be ready. Either way, Moderna (MRNA) has received nearly half a billion dollars from the government, and its stock price has soared. Amee Vanderpool tells more of the story:
Trump Vaccine Czar Still Stands to Profit
Courtesy of Amee Vanderpool, SHERO
The Trump administration has announced an ambitious plan to develop and produce millions of doses of a new COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, a lofty and risky process that stands to shift conventional wisdom about the vaccine process and seems to have yielded substantial stock profits for the pharmaceutical executive Trump has appointed to lead the initiative.
On May 15, in a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump and his deputies rolled out an initiative to speed up access to a vaccine for the novel coronavirus while calling it, “Operation Warp Speed.” At the time, Trump admitted the project was “risky and expensive” and Gustave Perna, a four-star general who oversees logistics for the U.S. Army, called the task “Herculean.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper has pledged to deliver a vaccine to the U.S. and its foreign partners by the end of the year.
Interestingly, this new messaging on the “impending” vaccine has been hyped by the White House at the same time that some states with Republican governors have been re-opening businesses within their localities, despite the warnings from the CDC and the guidelines set out by the White House.
(Trump delivers remarks and an update on COVID-19 vaccine development from White House Rose Garden on May 15, 2020.)
Image by pearson0612 from Pixabay
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Coronavirus in States
by ilene - May 26th, 2020 11:08 am
Via Jean Luc
Good Twitter thread about cases around US states:
https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/1265007908707860487
According to the best-performing model, transmission will be widespread throughout the summer. Very high baseline incidence heading into fall.
Look at the entire thread with some good charts. Some states are careening toward trouble it seems!
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Rich and poor don’t recover equally from epidemics. Rebuilding fairly will be a global challenge
by ilene - May 25th, 2020 10:21 pm
Rich and poor don't recover equally from epidemics. Rebuilding fairly will be a global challenge
www.shutterstock.com
Courtesy of Ilan Noy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, disaster recovery plans are almost always framed with aspirational plans to “build back better”. It’s a fine sentiment – we all want to build better societies and economies. But, as the Cheshire Cat tells Alice when she is lost, where we ought to go depends very much on where we want to get to.
The ambition to build back better therefore needs to be made explicit and transparent as countries slowly re-emerge from their COVID-19 cocoons.
The Asian Development Bank attempted last year to define build-back-better aspirations more precisely and concretely. The bank described four criteria: build back safer, build back faster, build back potential and build back fairer.
The first three are obvious. We clearly want our economies to recover fast, be safer and be more sustainable into the future. It’s the last objective – fairness – that will inevitably be the most challenging long-term goal at both the national and international level.
Economic fallout from the pandemic is already being experienced disproportionately among poorer households, in poorer regions within countries, and in poorer countries in general.
Some governments are aware of this and are trying to ameliorate this brewing inequality. At the same time, it is seen as politically unpalatable to engage in redistribution during a global crisis. Most governments are opting for broad-brush policies aimed at everyone, lest they appear to be encouraging class warfare and division or, in the case of New Zealand, electioneering.
Banda Aceh, Indonesia, after the 2004 tsunami: the impact of disaster is not felt equally by all. www.shutterstock.com
In fact, politicians’ typical focus on the next election aligns well with the public appetite for a fast recovery. We know that speedier recoveries are more complete, as delays dampen investment and people move away from economically depressed places.
Speed is also linked to safety. As we know…
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Memorial Day: Why veterans are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic
by ilene - May 25th, 2020 10:02 pm
Memorial Day: Why veterans are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic
U.S. war veterans’ graves at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California. Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Courtesy of Jamie Rowen, University of Massachusetts Amherst
As the nation takes a day to memorialize its military dead, those who are living are facing a deadly risk that has nothing to do with war or conflict: the coronavirus.
Different groups face different degrees of danger from the pandemic, from the elderly who are experiencing deadly outbreaks in nursing homes to communities of color with higher infection and death rates. Veterans are among the most hard-hit, with heightened health and economic threats from the pandemic. These veterans face homelessness, lack of health care, delays in receiving financial support and even death.
I have spent the past four years studying veterans with substance use and mental health disorders who are in the criminal justice system. This work revealed gaps in health care and financial support for veterans, even though they have the best publicly funded benefits in the country.
Here are eight ways the pandemic threatens veterans:
1. Age and other vulnerabilities
In 2017, veterans’ median age was 64, their average age was 58 and 91% were male. The largest group served in the Vietnam era, where 2.8 million veterans were exposed to Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant linked to cancer.
Younger veterans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan were exposed to dust storms, oil fires and burn pits with numerous toxins, and perhaps as a consequence have high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
Age and respiratory illnesses are both risk factors for COVID-19 mortality. As of May 22, there have been 12,979 people under Veterans Administration care with COVID-19, of whom 1,100 have died.
2. Dangerous residential facilities
Veterans needing end-of-life care, those with cognitive disabilities or those needing substance use treatment often live in crowded VA or state-funded residential facilities.
State-funded “soldiers’ homes” are notoriously starved for money and staff. The horrific situation at the soldiers’ home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.