covid 19 News and Research

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ECMO machine can be useful for treating critically ill COVID-19 patients

When COVID-19 patients are critically ill, the biggest threat to their lives is lung dysfunction. If their lungs don't work, their blood can't circulate enough oxygen to the brain, the liver and other organs.

18 May 2020

Smoking increases ACE2 protein in the lungs which may promote COVID-19 infection

Previous data from COVID-19 patients suggests that cigarette smokers are more likely to have health complications.

18 May 2020

Most Australians do not understand difference between bacterial and viral infection

Public awareness matters amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic; however, a new study shows that more than 92 percent of the Australian population cannot differentiate between a bacterial and viral infection.

18 May 2020

Coronavirus pandemic may spark mental health crisis, U.N. warns

A mental health crisis is looming as millions of people are affected by deaths, disease, poverty, and isolation. All of these factors could cause severe psychological distress. The U.N. warns that due to the stress faced by people in physical isolation, a mental health crisis is approaching.

18 May 2020

New vaccine appears to be highly protective against Ebola infection in mice

As the world focuses on finding a COVID-19 vaccine, research continues on other potentially catastrophic pandemic diseases, including Ebola and Marburg viruses.

18 May 2020

Human immune repertoire may not commonly produce cross-neutralizing antibodies to coronaviruses

Patients infected with either severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) or SARS-CoV-2 produce antibodies that bind to the other coronavirus, but the cross-reactive antibodies are not cross protective, at least in cell-culture experiments, researchers report May 17 in the journal Cell Reports.

18 May 2020

Scant clinical research for pregnant and lactating women with COVID-19

Pregnant and breastfeeding women have been excluded from clinical trials of drugs to treat COVID-19, and as result, there is no safety data to inform clinical decisions. Such drugs include remdesivir according to a new article in the peer-reviewed journal Breastfeeding Medicine.

18 May 2020

Tocilizumab improves survival in COVID-19 patients with ARDS

The current COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2), has already nearly 4.8 million confirmed cases and more than 318,000 deaths.

18 May 2020

Testing is lifesaving, concludes US study

One of the most critical steps in controlling a pandemic disease, which has a significant mortality rate, is testing for the disease. Though this may appear relevant and obvious, its ability to forecast mortality in the current COVID-19 pandemic has not been tested.

18 May 2020

Latest styrene gas-leak tragedy in India — A Bhopal redux

What is disconcerting to India's environment ministry about the 7 May styrene gas-leak tragedy, that killed 13 and over 1,000 hospitalised, is the inconvenient fact that it happened amidst plans to dilute the country's environment impact assessment regime to favour existing and new industrial and infrastructure projects.

18 May 2020

Global study to test whether antimalaria drug can prevent COVID-19 in health-care workers

With $9 million in philanthropic support, an international group of physicians and scientists is establishing a research network to evaluate promising therapies for COVID-19.

18 May 2020

Local variations in climate not likely to drive early COVID-19 pandemic

Local variations in climate are not likely to dominate the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Princeton University study published May 18 in the journal Science.

18 May 2020

Study reports on clinical course of COVID-19 and risk factors in IBD patients

In an upcoming study to be published in Gastroenterology, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine report on the clinical course of COVID-19 and risk factors for adverse outcomes in a large cohort of patients with IBD collected through an international registry.

18 May 2020

Potential new treatment approach to fatal COVID-19

Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Pathways Bioscience in the United States have found that activating a transcription factor involved in oxidative stress regulation, antiviral activity, and inflammation may serve as a new treatment approach to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

18 May 2020

SMART researchers awarded NMRC funding to develop rapid paper-based COVID-19 tests

Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, has received a grant from the National Medical Research Council COVID-19 Research fund for the acceleration of research and development of rapid paper-based serological and diagnostic tests for COVID-19.

18 May 2020

Schools can create predictable screen-free time for children

The latest screen-time related research from Dr. Pooja Tandon, a child health and development expert at Seattle Children's Research Institute, was inspired by her oldest son.

18 May 2020

Novel insights on SARS-CoV-2 cell entry may inform further vaccine and treatment development

A research group from Harvard Medical School reported two cryo-electron microscopy structures derived from a single preparation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike (S) protein in their paper available on the preprint server bioRxiv. Understanding the nuances of prefusion and postfusion conformations shed light on viral cell entry and may, in turn, guide the development of vaccines and drugs.

18 May 2020