Pneumonia News and Research

Latest Pneumonia News and Research

Study: Frequent use of antimicrobial drugs impairs bacterial diversity in saliva

The strongest associations were presented with azithromycin that is used for example to middle ear infections, strep throat and pneumonia.

24 Aug 2020

Nasal vaccine effective in preventing COVID-19 infection in mice

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a vaccine that targets the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can be given in one dose via the nose and is effective in preventing infection in mice susceptible to the novel coronavirus.

21 Aug 2020

VUMC receives $34 million grant for nationwide convalescent plasma study

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been awarded a one-year, $34-million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to conduct a nationwide study of "convalescent plasma" as a treatment for COVID-19.

21 Aug 2020

Macaques show low neutralizing antibody and cellular immune response to SARS-CoV-2

A new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in August 2020 presents a cynomolgus macaque model that develops symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in a mild form, with low or no antibody responses, making it suitable to study human responses to vaccines and drugs targeting the virus.

21 Aug 2020

COVID-19 causes significant dilation of lung blood vessels, indicates study

A new pilot study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai suggests that COVID-19 is causing significant dilation of the blood vessels of the lung, specifically the capillaries.

21 Aug 2020

Study evaluates the reliability of new serological assays for detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

Approximately four months after the initial description of cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, COVID-19 had become a major pandemic threat.

20 Aug 2020

Drug used in rheumatoid arthritis and cancer treatment improves survival in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Researchers at Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey's largest and most comprehensive health network, have utilized its statewide observational database of more than 5,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients to show that a drug normally used in rheumatoid arthritis and cancer treatments, tocilizumab, improves hospital survival in critically-ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

20 Aug 2020

Honey a better cough remedy than over-the-counter-medicines

Cough has many remedies, but one of the most popular ones is honey, which has been used for centuries. Now, new research claims honey may be a better treatment for cough and colds than over-the-counter medicines.

20 Aug 2020

Researchers use heparin to block co-receptor for SARS-CoV-2 infection

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have conducted a study showing that heparan sulfate proteoglycans are important co-receptors that severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) requires to infect host cells.

19 Aug 2020

Researchers identify drug that improves survival in critically ill COVID-19 patients

19 Aug 2020

Mathematical modeling helps researchers track and tackle COVID-19 pandemic

The Editor-in-Chief Vitaly Volpert of the Institut Camille Jordan, University ofLyon, France, reviews how the public's new favourite scientific discipline, mathematical modelling, is being used to track and tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

19 Aug 2020

Antibody and cellular immunity in severe vs. mild COVID-19

Now, a new study published in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy in August 2020 shows that while humoral and T-cell immune responses are more robust in severe infection, the disease activates memory T cells as part of the adaptive immune system in COVID-19 patients irrespective of disease severity.

18 Aug 2020

Smokers more likely to experience severe COVID-19 symptoms

Researchers in Germany and Turkey have conducted a study showing that tobacco smoking is associated with an increased risk of more severe disease in cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

18 Aug 2020

COVID immunity related to how bad you get it

Researchers at Stanford University in California have shown that severely ill patients hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection develop significantly higher levels of antibodies against the virus than asymptomatic individuals and outpatients.

18 Aug 2020

Wits University begins South African trial of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine

NVX-CoV2373 is produced by the biotech company, Novavax (Maryland, U.S.A). Novavax is a late-stage biotechnology company that develops next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases.

17 Aug 2020

Social distancing reduced ER visits and respiratory tract infections in Finnish children

Finland declared a lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, and the ensuing social distancing measures decreased the number of paediatric emergency room visits to nearly one-third of what they used to be, according to a recent register-based study conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio University Hospital and the National Institute for Health and Welfare.

17 Aug 2020

Startling report suggests COVID-19 may have first appeared in 2012

Now, a report on the website Independent Science News by researchers Jonathan Latham, and Allison Wilson suggests that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), may not have originated at a Wuhan wet market in 2019, but 1,000 miles away in 2012, in a Chinese mineshaft where workers fell ill with a mysterious, pneumonia-like illness after being exposed to bats.

17 Aug 2020

ARDS may not be the primary lung iInjury in COVID-19

A new Italian study published on the preprint server medRxiv in August 2020 shows that this may not be an adequate explanation, since ARDS is a nonspecific diagnosis. Instead, they say, antemortem lung biopsy shows a “Covid pattern” of acute lung injury, which could guide the application of therapeutics.

16 Aug 2020

Cardiovascular risk factors may impact COVID-19 outcomes

COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular comorbidities or risk factors are more likely to develop cardiovascular complications while hospitalized, and more likely to die from COVID-19 infection, according to a new study published August 14, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jolanda Sabatino of Universita degli Studi Magna Graecia di Catanzaro, Italy, and colleagues.

14 Aug 2020

Experimental COVID-19 vaccine prevents severe disease in mice

Now, a novel experimental vaccine that is made from a mild virus genetically-modified to carry an essential gene from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronary disease (COVID-19), has shown promise in preventing pneumonia in mice infected with the virus.

14 Aug 2020