Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Real-life discussions may help counter anti-vaccination influences from social media

The flu vaccine is considered one of the great achievements in public health, and each year it prevents millions of people from getting sick and thousands of deaths.

10 Aug 2020

Pandemic hampers reopening of joint replacement gold mine

Dr. Ira Weintraub, a recently retired orthopedic surgeon who now works at a medical billing consultancy, saw a hip replacement bill for over $400,000 earlier this year.

10 Aug 2020

Reopening after COVID-19 lockdown and impact on disease

The study shows that 8 of 11 European countries had significantly more cases after reopening, but Germany, the UAE, and Poland had fewer. In five of the eight, the cases increased, peaked, and then dropped before the reopening happened, while Romania and Serbia showed a rapid rise before reopening.

10 Aug 2020

SARS-CoV-2 droplets travel further and last longer than thought, and even more in humid air

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is spread by respiratory aerosols, in which tiny droplets of saliva and mucus containing the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are expelled from the upper respiratory tract. Though quite a few studies have investigated the viral load of such droplets, not much is known about how far these droplets move or how long they linger in the air, even though such information is crucial to determining how infectious they are.

10 Aug 2020

People may have a pre-existing immune response to COVID-19 thanks to common colds

Now, a new study shows that some people have immune responses against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, thanks to how the body reacted the last time it caught a cold. This means that even if a person has not been exposed to the novel coronavirus, the body has a memory of it and can trigger an immune response to fight the infection.

10 Aug 2020

COVID-19 patient with repeatedly undetectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

A recent case study published in the Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine in August 2020 illustrates this with its finding of persistent seronegativity in a patient confirmed to be SARS-CoV-2 positive.

10 Aug 2020

How have non-pharmaceutical interventions helped in COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of abating, with outbreaks in many spots still occurring across the world. From the start, health organizations and governments were focused on implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in the absence of any effective antivirals or vaccines.

9 Aug 2020

Speed of Novavax vaccine development does not compromise quality of the SARS-CoV-2 immunogen

A new study by researchers from the Scripps Research Institute and Novavax Inc. in the US affirms the structural integrity of the full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein immunogen. It enables the interpretation of immune responses to this multivalent nanoparticle immunogen. Their results are currently available on bioRxiv preprint server.

9 Aug 2020

Encouraging results from Phase I NovaVax SARS-CoV-2 nanoparticle vaccine trial

NVX-CoV2373, a recombinant nanoparticle vaccine developed by Novavax and manufactured at Emergent Biosolutions, was found to be well tolerated and immunogenic – inducing T-cell response and neutralization antibodies four-fold higher than the mean observed in hospitalized coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients, shows a recent study available on the medRxiv* preprint server.

9 Aug 2020

Scientists develop a simple approach to visually evaluate mask effectiveness

Using inexpensive and widely available tools, scientists have developed a simple approach to visually evaluate how effectively different types of masks prevent the spread of droplets that could contain SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, according to a new study.

9 Aug 2020

New platform shows potential to generate most effective vaccines with fewest side effects

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is shining a bright spotlight on vaccine development. As numerous vaccines race through clinical trials, physicians and researchers continue to work on developing new vaccine technologies to generate the most effective vaccines with the fewest side effects.

7 Aug 2020

UNC researchers uncover new clues in the battle against CF bacteria

Several different kinds of bacteria can cause lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis (CF). Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause pneumonia, typically infects infants or young children and persists for life, while Burkholderia cepacia complex species only infect teenagers and adults.

7 Aug 2020

FDA approves first oral drug for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Evrysdi (risdiplam) to treat patients two months of age and older with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare and often fatal genetic disease affecting muscle strength and movement.

7 Aug 2020

Swansea University tests new way to give vaccines through microneedle skin patches

A revolutionary new way to give vaccines through microneedle skin patches is being tested at Swansea University, thanks to £200,000 of EU funding announced by the Welsh Government.

7 Aug 2020

Computer scientists release new digital contact-tracing technique based on Wi-Fi

Researchers at the Center for Smart and Connected Society at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently released a new digital contact-tracing technique that is based on widely-deployed Wi-Fi technology.

7 Aug 2020

USF Health researchers develop new reporter mouse strain for identifying P2X2-expressing cells

Despite frequent news announcing "medical breakthroughs," advancements in biomedical and clinical science typically happen incrementally.

7 Aug 2020

Researchers investigate the health consequences of heavier smoking

Each cigarette smoked a day by heavier smokers increases the risk of contracting some diseases by more than 30 per cent, according to a new international study published today.

7 Aug 2020

Study: Drinking honeysuckle decoction accelerates the negative conversion of COVID-19 patients

In a new study in Cell Discovery, Chen-Yu Zhang's group at Nanjing University and two other groups from Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Second Hospital of Nanjing present a novel finding that absorbed miRNA MIR2911 in honeysuckle decoction (HD) can directly target SARS-CoV-2 genes and inhibit viral replication. Drinking of HD accelerate the negative conversion of COVID-19 patients.

7 Aug 2020

Immune system derails during severe course of COVID-19

Contrary to what has been generally assumed so far, a severe course of COVID-19 does not solely result in a strong immune reaction - rather, the immune response is caught in a continuous loop of activation and inhibition.

6 Aug 2020

Humans promote diseases from the animal kingdom

The coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected nearly 19 million and killed more than 712,000 people, most likely originated from bats. Just like other coronavirus outbreaks in the past, a spill-over event or zoonosis caused the viruses to jump from animals to humans.

6 Aug 2020

Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Real-life discussions may help counter anti-vaccination influences from social media

Pandemic hampers reopening of joint replacement gold mine

Reopening after COVID-19 lockdown and impact on disease

SARS-CoV-2 droplets travel further and last longer than thought, and even more in humid air

People may have a pre-existing immune response to COVID-19 thanks to common colds

COVID-19 patient with repeatedly undetectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

How have non-pharmaceutical interventions helped in COVID-19?

Speed of Novavax vaccine development does not compromise quality of the SARS-CoV-2 immunogen

Encouraging results from Phase I NovaVax SARS-CoV-2 nanoparticle vaccine trial

Scientists develop a simple approach to visually evaluate mask effectiveness

New platform shows potential to generate most effective vaccines with fewest side effects

UNC researchers uncover new clues in the battle against CF bacteria

FDA approves first oral drug for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy

Swansea University tests new way to give vaccines through microneedle skin patches

Computer scientists release new digital contact-tracing technique based on Wi-Fi

USF Health researchers develop new reporter mouse strain for identifying P2X2-expressing cells

Researchers investigate the health consequences of heavier smoking

Study: Drinking honeysuckle decoction accelerates the negative conversion of COVID-19 patients

Immune system derails during severe course of COVID-19

Humans promote diseases from the animal kingdom

Real-time Raman monitoring for pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion

Synthetic Psychedelics: A Growing Public Health Concern

How the Vutara VXL simplifies single-molecule imaging

Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Real-time Raman monitoring for pharmaceutical hot melt extrusion

Synthetic Psychedelics: A Growing Public Health Concern

How the Vutara VXL simplifies single-molecule imaging

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