Pandemic News and Research

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A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. During a pandemic, transmission can be anticipated in the workplace, not only from patient to workers in health care settings, but also among co-workers in general work settings. A pandemic would cause high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts could range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

Bispecific antibodies neutralize SARS-CoV-2 and its variants

A new bioRxiv preprint study led by Joshua Tan from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, involves generating bispecific antibodies using a new method cross-linking the antibodies with adjacent spike proteins using dual N-terminal domain/receptor binding domain specificity.

7 Apr 2021

Pandemic's mitigation efforts may have contributed to drop in clinical trial completion rates

Social distancing and lockdowns may have reduced the spread of COVID-19, but researchers from Penn State College of Medicine also report those actions may have affected clinical researchers' ability to finish trials.

7 Apr 2021

$15.7 million NIMH grant to renew UC Davis Conte Center studying the origins of mental illness

Discovering how infections during pregnancy, such as COVID-19 and influenza, can lead to psychiatric illness and developmental disorders in offspring years later, and how to detect, prevent or treat these disorders, is the subject of a $15.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Conte Center at the University of California, Davis.

7 Apr 2021

Finding ways to reverse a genetic cause of poor stress responses in mice

Everyone faces stress occasionally, whether in school, at work, or during a global pandemic. However, some cannot cope as well as others.

7 Apr 2021

Researchers identify novel SARS-CoV-2 variant unregistered on genomic sequence databases

A team of scientists from the University of California Santa Cruz, USA, recently identified a novel variant (B.1.x) of SARS-CoV-2 that might be circulating in at least 20 US states and six countries globally.

7 Apr 2021

Doctor survived Cambodia’s killing fields, but not Covid

Linath Lim's life was shaped by starvation. She was not yet 13 when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia and ripped her family apart. The totalitarian regime sent her and four siblings to work camps, where they planted rice and dug irrigation canals from sunrise to sunset — each surviving on two ladles of rice gruel a day. One disappeared, never to be found.

7 Apr 2021

Study: Disparities persist in prescribing comfort care for ischemic stroke patients

Receiving palliative or hospice care services was found to improve quality of life for hospitalized ischemic stroke patients, however, disparities persist in which patients are prescribed or have access to these holistic comfort care options, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.

7 Apr 2021

Researchers address the issue of drug shortages

The two researchers are among the first to address the issue of drug shortages in contexts outside of the US; their study will look at the supply of medicines in Europe, with a focus on Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

7 Apr 2021

Novel polyclonal antibody XAV-19 efficiently neutralizes UK and South African SARS-CoV-2 variants

A promising new study reports on the high neutralizing efficacy of a polyclonal swine antibody against SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen responsible for the novel COVID-19. By demonstrating the ability of this antibody to neutralize all currently circulating viral variants, the study suggests that it is ideal for development as a new and very effective therapy for COVID-19.

7 Apr 2021

California counties a hodgepodge of highs and lows in vaccinating vulnerable seniors

Even as California prepares to expand vaccine eligibility on April 15 to all residents age 16 and up, the state has managed to inoculate only about half its senior population — the 65-and-older target group deemed most vulnerable to death and serious illness in the pandemic.

7 Apr 2021

Which SARS-CoV-2 spike mutants can evade T cell immunity?

A new study reports the capability of a new variant of the virus to escape specific cellular immunity, while possessing a higher binding affinity to the host cell binding receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).

7 Apr 2021

Enhanced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 South African variant with heterologous adjuvant vaccine candidate

A new study describes the use of a single dose of vaccine based on the viral protein called the receptor-binding domain (RBD) to elicit powerful neutralizing activity against both the Wuhan strain and the most concerning VOC called the South African (SA) strain.

7 Apr 2021

Events of 2020 moved medical students to political activism

Inam Sakinah and her classmates will forever be known as the students who started medical school during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.

7 Apr 2021

COVID-19 pandemic highlights the key role of biodiversity collections

Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the crucial role played by biodiversity collections in enabling rapid responses to crises and in facilitating ongoing research across numerous fields.

7 Apr 2021

Global secretive governments are bypassing rules during COVID-19 pandemic

From Brazil to the Philippines, secretive governments across the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by covering up data and bypassing public procurement rules, undermining trust in health systems, fuelling anti-vaxxers and putting immunisation campaigns at risk.

7 Apr 2021

Dramatic cuts to UK foreign aid budgets undermine global research partnerships

Dramatic cuts to UK foreign aid budgets have left the future of hundreds of research projects in developing countries hanging in the balance and trusted partnerships severely undermined, say leading scientists.

7 Apr 2021

Second Radiometer donation to support Red Cross COVID19 response

Acknowledging the impact that COVID-19 has on communities and economies globally, we are pleased to announce our second monetary donation to the Danish Red Cross’ international COVID-19 response of DKK 50,000 (USD 7,900) on World Health Day 7 April.

From Radiometer Medical 7 Apr 2021

South African and Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 variants can evade antibodies from therapies, vaccines, and infection

Researchers at the Infection Biology Unit, German Primate Center, and the Georg-August-University Göttingen in Germany have found that the B.1.351 and P.1 SARS-CoV-2 variants have the potential to evade therapeutic antibodies or antibodies induced by natural infection or vaccination.

7 Apr 2021

World Health Day 2021: The humanitarians building a fairer world

In commemoration of World Health Day 2021, News-Medical interviews the International Medical Corps on how they are helping to achieve a fairer and healthier world.

7 Apr 2021

CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance announces outcomes of NIH-funded Phase 3 ITAC clinical trial

The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance today announced that the Phase 3 Inpatient Treatment with Anti-Coronavirus Immunoglobulin (ITAC) clinical trial sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), did not meet its endpoints. No serious safety signals were raised in the trial.

7 Apr 2021

Pandemic News and Research

Further Reading

Bispecific antibodies neutralize SARS-CoV-2 and its variants

Pandemic's mitigation efforts may have contributed to drop in clinical trial completion rates

$15.7 million NIMH grant to renew UC Davis Conte Center studying the origins of mental illness

Finding ways to reverse a genetic cause of poor stress responses in mice

Researchers identify novel SARS-CoV-2 variant unregistered on genomic sequence databases

Doctor survived Cambodia’s killing fields, but not Covid

Study: Disparities persist in prescribing comfort care for ischemic stroke patients

Researchers address the issue of drug shortages

Novel polyclonal antibody XAV-19 efficiently neutralizes UK and South African SARS-CoV-2 variants

California counties a hodgepodge of highs and lows in vaccinating vulnerable seniors

Which SARS-CoV-2 spike mutants can evade T cell immunity?

Enhanced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 South African variant with heterologous adjuvant vaccine candidate

Events of 2020 moved medical students to political activism

COVID-19 pandemic highlights the key role of biodiversity collections

Global secretive governments are bypassing rules during COVID-19 pandemic

Dramatic cuts to UK foreign aid budgets undermine global research partnerships

Second Radiometer donation to support Red Cross COVID19 response

South African and Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 variants can evade antibodies from therapies, vaccines, and infection

World Health Day 2021: The humanitarians building a fairer world

CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance announces outcomes of NIH-funded Phase 3 ITAC clinical trial

Sensing a Healthier Future

Achieving and maintaining ISO/IEC 27001 and BS 10012 certifications

Expanding research and clinical options for children with cancer

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