Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Latest Cold, Flu & Cough News and Research

Avoiding care during the pandemic could mean life or death

These days, Los Angeles acting teacher Deryn Warren balances her pain with her fear. She's a bladder cancer patient who broke her wrist in November. She still needs physical therapy for her wrist, and she's months late for a cancer follow-up.

31 Jul 2020

New article reviews poor life expectancy associated with treatment-resistant schizophrenia

The vast majority of reviews on psychotropic drugs is focused on the potential benefits that may have. However, the vulnerabilities induced by treatment need also to be considered.

31 Jul 2020

New simple way of detecting COVID-19 in blood plasma

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic claims increasing numbers of patients, testing numbers are rising in most nations at the leading edge. However, the current reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) testing is often unavailable and takes up to several days for results to arrive.

31 Jul 2020

Researchers report a liquid biopsy for COVID-19

A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in July 2020 reports the potential of cell-free DNA as a marker of the severity of disease in COVID-19. This could help triage patients as well as provide a prognostic marker.

30 Jul 2020

From swab to sequencing - scalable method for identifying SARS-CoV-2

A research group headed by Stanford University scientists has developed a scalable, high throughput method to generate high fidelity whole genome and HLA sequencing, viral genomes, and representation of human transcriptome from single nasopharyngeal swabs of coronavirus disease (COVID19) patients. Their results are published on the medRxiv preprint server.

30 Jul 2020

Deep neural networks to identify pneumonia caused by COVID-19 in CT scans

As COVID-19 cases in the United States continue to surge, there is an ongoing search for quick and reliable testing.

30 Jul 2020

Novel vaccine candidate robustly protects non-human primates against SARS-CoV-2

The development of a safe and effective vaccine will likely be required to end the COVID-19 pandemic. A group of scientists, led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center immunologist Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD, now report that a leading candidate COVID-19 vaccine developed at BIDMC in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson raised neutralizing antibodies and robustly protected non-human primates against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

30 Jul 2020

UEA researchers examine flu vaccine uptake to learn lessons for COVID-19 immunization

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are investigating uptake of the flu vaccine among care home staff in a bid to see if lessons can be learned to encourage people to have a COVID-19 immunisation.

30 Jul 2020

Scientists develop human lung organoids to study SARS-CoV-2 infection

Now, a new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in July 2020 reports the development of a human distal lung culture system that can be functionally tested. This will help not only to understand how this infection produces disease but also to test the proliferative capacity of the stem cells in this part of the body.

30 Jul 2020

Study reports highly potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 compounds

A new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in July 2020 reports that a series of potent enzyme inhibitors have been designed to suppress severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) replication by interfering with one of the primary viral proteases.

30 Jul 2020

Researchers are developing comprehensive catalog of functional elements of human and mouse genomes

Scientists around the world have access to a rich trove of information through the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE)--annotated versions of the human and mouse genomes that are vital for interpreting their genetic codes.

30 Jul 2020

Antimalarial drug shows in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 and flu viruses

Now, a new study published in the preprint server bioRxiv in July 2020 reports on the antiviral activity of two drugs found in an antimalarial drug currently in phase II trials in South Korea, called Pyramax.

30 Jul 2020

Researchers analyze travel history of first COVID-19 cases reported in countries outside China

Web-based surveillance of the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) during the first 11 weeks of the outbreak (Dec 31, 2019, to March 10, 2020), reveals that three-quarters (75/99) of affected countries outside mainland China reported their first COVID-19 case in people who had recently travelled to an affected country--with almost two-thirds of these first cases linked to travel to Italy (27%), China (22%), or Iran (11%), according to new research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

30 Jul 2020

COVID-19 pandemic is "one big wave" says WHO

The COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world has to date infected over 16.95 million individuals and taken more than 665,000 lives. Now the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that this pandemic could cause a Tsunami of cases, and there is no scope for complacency in regions where numbers have declined.

30 Jul 2020

Relatives of SARS-CoV-2 may pose a health threat for years to come

Coronaviruses are zoonotic viruses that jump from animals to humans and cause infection. There are many types of common human coronaviruses, which usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold. Most people get infected with one or more of coronavirus types 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1 at some point in their lives.

29 Jul 2020

Loss of smell in COVID-19 explained by scientists

Now, a team of researchers at Harvard Medical school says they have found the reason why some people who get COVID-19 experience loss of smell.

29 Jul 2020

Iota-carrageenan from red seaweed inhibits SARS-CoV-2 in laboratory conditions

In a recent bioRxiv paper, a research group from the Marinomed Biotech biopharmaceutical company in Austria showed that a sulfated polysaccharide iota-carrageenan has the propensity to inhibit cell entry of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by using an in vitro neutralization assay.

29 Jul 2020

Study explores if prior exposure to common cold viruses may affect SARS-CoV-2 severity

A study led by Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (MPIMG) shows that some healthy individuals possess immune cells capable of recognizing the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.

29 Jul 2020

Researchers identify potential anti-viral strategy for SARS-CoV-2 virus

In the case of an infection, the SARS-CoV-2 virus must overcome various defense mechanisms of the human body, including its non-specific or innate immune defense. During this process, infected body cells release messenger substances known as type 1 interferons. These attract natural killer cells, which kill the infected cells.

29 Jul 2020

Where mask-wearing isn’t gospel: Colorado churches grapple with reopening

The lights dimmed. Guitars thrummed. And a nine-piece band kicked off what amounted to a rock concert inside an amphitheater of a church. "Shout for joy to the Lord," one musician called out, quoting Scripture.

29 Jul 2020