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Echinacea purpurea may help prevent respiratory tract infections during COVID-19 pandemic

A new study describes the results of using an extract of the medicinal plant Echinacea purpurea to treat non-severe cases of COVID-19.

19 Dec 2021

Study suggests 2/3 of Dutch children < 12 years have been infected with SARS-CoV-2

Researchers conduct intensive and longitudinal monitoring of households with children of different ages for the presence of SARS-CoV-2.

19 Dec 2021

Vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 caused by Omicron and Delta SARS-CoV-2 variants in England

Researchers performed a test-negative case-control study to determine the effectiveness of BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 COVID-19 vaccines against the Omicron and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2.

17 Dec 2021

Signatures of rising SARS-CoV-2 Delta infections in New York

Researchers estimate the probability of breakthrough infections by the Delta variant as compared to other variants.

15 Dec 2021

SARS-CoV-2 VOCs dependent on IFITM2 for efficient infection establishment

Researchers demonstrate that the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 require endogenous IFITM2 expression for efficient replication.

15 Dec 2021

T-cell immune response in previously infected and vaccinated individuals effective against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

New findings illustrate that despite the continuous pattern of the ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2, it has not resulted in any significant accumulation of CD8+ T-cell escape mutations.

15 Dec 2021

Eating before saliva collection may interfere with detection of SARS-CoV-2

A new study, published on the medRxiv* preprint server, has aimed to determine if children's diet impacts the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus in saliva. Scientists performed diagnostic tests to detect this virus using real-time self-collected specimens provided by five healthy children. The samples were collected before and after eating selected foods. The specific time of collection of samples after eating were 0 minutes, 20 minutes, and 60 minutes after eating.

15 Dec 2021

Omicron evades immunity more than other SARS-CoV-2 variants

Researchers find that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant shows a much more extensive escape from vaccine-elicited immunity.

14 Dec 2021

Self-collected samples on par with gold standard for detection of SARS-CoV-2

Researchers directly compare the diagnostic sensitivity of self-collected samples.

14 Dec 2021

Severity of SARS-CoV-2 compared to other human coronaviruses in children

Researchers observed that symptom presentation of SARS-CoV-2 infections at the community level was very similar to that of endemic human coronavirus infections.

14 Dec 2021

Characteristics of vaccine breakthroughs in fully vaccinated individuals in France with delta variant

In a recent observational study, scientists have described the characteristics of VBIs in fully vaccinated individuals in France.

13 Dec 2021

A new rapid and inexpensive PCR method to detect SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

A new study reports a method using four PCR tests to distinguish infection with the Omicron variant from that caused by other variants.

12 Dec 2021

UCLA research points the way towards a longer-lasting COVID vaccine

Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have identified rare, naturally occurring T cells that are capable of targeting a protein found in SARS-CoV-2 and a range of other coronaviruses.

11 Dec 2021

Impact of environmental SARS-CoV-2 contamination in residential housing

In a new study, scientists hypothesize that the presence of Corynebacterium and SARS-CoV-2 in surface samples might be associated with skin contamination.

10 Dec 2021

Evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant

Study shows that the omicron variant shares a common ancestry with the VOI lambda and has evolved mainly because of non-synonymous mutations.

9 Dec 2021

Rapid antigen detection test for SARS-CoV-2 proves more effective than expected, large study reports

In what is believed to be the largest prospective study of its kind to date -; involving some 6,000 patients seen at the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital (BCCFH) during a 10-day period around the beginning of 2021 -; researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical Center, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and four other collaborators report that a rapid antigen detection test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, proved more effective than expected when compared with virus detection rates using the established standard test, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.

8 Dec 2021