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.

Asymptomatic individuals mount polyfunctional antibody response to SARS-CoV-2

Researchers in France have conducted a study showing that people who are asymptomatic following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – elicit a polyfunctional antibody response to the virus.

16 Nov 2020

Multi-model forecasts could help inform management of COVID-19 pandemic

A team of researchers from various institutions in the UK has reviewed multi-model forecasts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic made between the end of March and mid-July 2020.

16 Nov 2020

OHIO professor's new study focuses on strategies hospitals adopt to address the opioid epidemic

While the world's attention to public health remains focused on COVID-19, Berkeley Franz, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, continues to focus her attention on one of the largest public health crises in the United States today - the opioid epidemic.

16 Nov 2020

Study compares deaths in Sweden and Norway before and after COVID pandemic

A recent epidemiological study, currently available on the medRxiv preprint server, demonstrates that all-cause mortality was mostly unchanged during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic compared to the previous four years in Norway and Sweden – two countries which took very different routes in their battle against this disease.

16 Nov 2020

COVID-19 loneliness study reveals significant depressive symptoms in 80% of young adults

A new national survey, looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted young US adults' loneliness, reveals "significant depressive symptoms" in 80% of participants.

16 Nov 2020

Health care workers have a higher prevalence of COVID-19 than non-health care workers

Health care workers -- particularly nurses -- have a higher prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than non-health care workers, according to researchers at Rutgers, which released baseline results from a large prospective study of participants at Rutgers and affiliated hospitals recruited during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

16 Nov 2020

Mediterranean diet may help reduce the physiological effects of stress

Even before the pandemic and the presidential election, Americans reported some of the highest perceived levels of stress in the world, according to the American Psychological Association.

16 Nov 2020

Sanger Institute and COG-UK get £12.2M funding to build genomic surveillance system for COVID-19

The Department for Health and Social Care Testing Innovation Fund has backed the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium in expanding whole genome sequencing of positive SARS-CoV-2 virus samples to map how COVID-19 spreads and evolves.

16 Nov 2020

Measles outbreaks likely to occur as an unexpected consequence of COVID-19 pandemic

Major measles outbreaks will likely occur during 2021 as an unexpected consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new academic article.

16 Nov 2020

Corticosteroids can help in survival of elderly patients with severe COVID-19

A new study group based in France have looked at the rates of survival among elderly patients with COVID-19 who were administered with corticosteroids.

16 Nov 2020

Antifungal agent Itraconazole inhibits SARS CoV-2 in vitro

Itraconazole is a broad-spectrum antifungal agent that has been shown to have some in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 by a team of Belgian and German researchers.

16 Nov 2020

Nanobodies: unharnessed potential in COVID-19 treatment

A new study published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics in October 2020 discusses the use of nanobodies in diagnosing and treating this deadly disease.

16 Nov 2020

Care pathways for pregnant women with COVID‐19

A recent review published in the journal Global Challenges in October 2020, sums up what is currently known about the treatment of COVID-19 during pregnancy and offers recommendations for how healthcare professions might better manage pregnant COVID-19 patients in the future.

16 Nov 2020

Goblet cells are prime target for SARS-CoV-2, study finds

A recent study reports that in the airway of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a type of airway epithelial cell – called a goblet cell – presents a prime target for the virus and plays a vital role in promoting viral replication in this tissue.

16 Nov 2020

Google searches for COVID-19 symptoms can anticipate case numbers

Google searches may come to the aid in predicting the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, which we need to identify, manage, and, if possible, contain new outbreaks.

16 Nov 2020

Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine nearly 95% effective

US company Moderna have just released their early phase 3 clinical trial results for their COVID-19 vaccine which is nearly 95% effective.

16 Nov 2020

Royal Government of Cambodia commits to eliminating the deadliest strain of malaria

The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) today committed to eliminating Plasmodium falciparum within the next few months, and to maintaining zero cases by 2023, through the launch of an innovative and targeted approach for the ‘last mile’ of malaria elimination in the country.

16 Nov 2020