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.

Researchers describe new methods to speed up drug approvals during pandemics

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have published a pair of studies in a COVID-19 special issue of the Harvard Data Science Review, freely available via open access, describing new methods for accelerating drug approvals during pandemics and for providing more accurate measures of the probabilities of success for clinical trials of vaccines and other anti-infective therapies.

20 May 2020

Taking blood pressure medicines as usual is important during COVID-19 pandemic

Keeping your blood pressure under control is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic – so keep taking your blood pressure medicines!

20 May 2020

Loss of smell added to the UK's official list of Covid-19 symptoms

The UK has joined the US, Europe and the World Health Organisation by including loss of smell or taste as an officially recognized symptom of Covid-19 – thanks in part to an international research project involving Professor Carl Philpott at the University of East Anglia.

20 May 2020

V-Sensor and e-Checkup-enabled smartphones help monitor vital signs with medical accuracy

The rapid development and deployment of mobile phone apps during the Coronavirus pandemic by governments desperate to find a way to contain the virus by using mobile device technology for tracking and tracing is a clear indicator that mass adoption of smartphones to improve health outcomes in populations is set to become mainstream.

20 May 2020

COVID-19 restrictions may have unintended consequences for young eyes

Young Australians studying from home during the COVID-19 pandemic still need to spend time outside to prevent near-sightedness, according to a researcher from The University of Western Australia.

20 May 2020

Prellis Externalized Human Immune System produces human antibodies against SARS-Cov2

Prellis Biologics, Inc. today announced that it has generated 300 human IgG antibodies that bind to either the S1 or S2 spike protein of the SARS-CoV2-Wuhan strain of the novel coronavirus.

20 May 2020

Australian COVID-19 prevention trial begins for frontline and allied healthcare workers

COVID SHIELD is a major collaborative effort led by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in partnership with human data science company IQVIA.

19 May 2020

Immunotherapy, steroids restore heart function in children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome

Treatment with antibodies purified from donated blood - immune globulin therapy - and steroids restored heart function in the majority of children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome, according to new research published yesterday in Circulation, the flagship journal of the American Heart Association.

19 May 2020

Aerosol transmission through new vs. reused N95 masks

The world is grappling with the worst pandemic in over 100 years. Caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus which emerged in China in December 2019 but has now spread across the globe. With a rapid rate of transmission, SARS-CoV-2 has now affected over 4.88 million people and resulted in over 322,000 deaths.

19 May 2020

The use of rheumatoid arthritis drug sarilumab in severe COVID-19 pneumonia

A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv* in May 2020 reports the beneficial effects of the monoclonal antibody sarilumab in severe COVID-19 pneumonia.

19 May 2020

Do parasites protect against SARS-CoV-2?

The world has rarely seen such a readily transmissible infection as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) over the last century. Within five months, the virus has created a Tsunami of COVID-19 positive cases, comprising almost 4.88 million people and causing 322,000 deaths.

19 May 2020

Mosquito-borne viral outbreaks pose serious issues in West Africa

In a new study, researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus call attention to the emergence of mosquito-borne viral outbreaks in West Africa, such as dengue (DENV), chikungunya (CHIKV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses.

19 May 2020

Researchers propose a safer approach to splitting ventilators

As more Covid-19 patients experience acute respiratory distress, there has been much debate over the idea of sharing ventilators, which involves splitting air tubes into multiple branches so that two or more patients can be connected to the same machine.

19 May 2020

Did SARS-CoV-2 adapt to humans long before the index case?

A new study from Canada and the U.S. suggests that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) may have already been pre-adapted to human transmission when it emerged in late 2019, which means there may be lingering populations of progenitor SARS-CoV-2 adept for human transmission and coronavirus disease (COVID-19) re-emergence. The research is published on the preprint server bioRxiv in May 2020.

19 May 2020

No SARS-COV-2 among young children in Belgium attending daycare, report researchers

A study conducted by researchers in Belgium has found no evidence to support concerns that asymptomatic young children may be a source of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus disease 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission.

19 May 2020

Modified clinical trial design to meet urgent community needs during COVID-19 pandemic

A new paper published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society describes a nimble, pragmatic and rigorous multicenter clinical trial design to meet urgent community needs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

19 May 2020

Steroids and immunotherapy improve outcomes in children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome

19 May 2020

NEJM Group releases a series of five Covid-19 interactive cases

NEJM Group today released Covid-19 Rx: Treatment Simulations, a series of five Covid-19 interactive cases that range from a mild self-limited flu-like illness to life-threatening multi-organ failure.

19 May 2020

X-ray experiments demonstrate a new way to block the entry of SARS-CoV-2

As scientists across the globe race to develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, an international team led by Davide Corti at Vir Biotechnology and David Veesler at the University of Washington has been working around the clock on a complementary approach - identifying neutralizing antibodies that could be used as a preventative treatment or as a post-exposure therapy.

19 May 2020

SWOG scientists to deliver online presentations at ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program

Researchers from SWOG, a cancer clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, will make 31 presentations as part of the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, the online annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which runs May 29-31.

19 May 2020

Pandemic News and Research

Further Reading

Researchers describe new methods to speed up drug approvals during pandemics

Taking blood pressure medicines as usual is important during COVID-19 pandemic

Loss of smell added to the UK's official list of Covid-19 symptoms

V-Sensor and e-Checkup-enabled smartphones help monitor vital signs with medical accuracy

COVID-19 restrictions may have unintended consequences for young eyes

Prellis Externalized Human Immune System produces human antibodies against SARS-Cov2

Australian COVID-19 prevention trial begins for frontline and allied healthcare workers

Immunotherapy, steroids restore heart function in children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome

Aerosol transmission through new vs. reused N95 masks

The use of rheumatoid arthritis drug sarilumab in severe COVID-19 pneumonia

Do parasites protect against SARS-CoV-2?

Mosquito-borne viral outbreaks pose serious issues in West Africa

Researchers propose a safer approach to splitting ventilators

Did SARS-CoV-2 adapt to humans long before the index case?

No SARS-COV-2 among young children in Belgium attending daycare, report researchers

Modified clinical trial design to meet urgent community needs during COVID-19 pandemic

Steroids and immunotherapy improve outcomes in children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome

NEJM Group releases a series of five Covid-19 interactive cases

X-ray experiments demonstrate a new way to block the entry of SARS-CoV-2

SWOG scientists to deliver online presentations at ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program

Best practices - optimize qPCR processes for pathogen detection eBook

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

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