Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome News and Research

Latest Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome News and Research

Could COVID-19 vaccinations or prior infections protect against other coronaviruses?

A new study provides encouraging proof of the feasibility of this project, showing that both natural infection with and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 are associated with an increase in cross-reactive antibodies against other CoVs.

7 Jun 2021

Around 5% of children develop long COVID-19 symptoms, suggests new study

A new study, by researchers at University College London (UCL) in the UK, shows that even though children rarely develop symptomatically severe COVID-19, the prevalence of long COVID in children with a history of infection is over 4.5%.

7 Jun 2021

Could sustained inflammation following mild to moderate COVID-19 be a driver of long COVID?

A new study describes the discovery of sustained though low-level rises in inflammatory mediators and immune cells, as well as the loss of some subsets of naïve un-activated cells. This may indicate a widespread though muted immune-mediated inflammatory response in these patients.

7 Jun 2021

The great promise of antiviral peptides against SARS-CoV-2

A new study, recently published in the journal Viruses, describes the impressive evidence for the role of antimicrobial peptidse (AMPs) in the treatment of COVID-19.

7 Jun 2021

Chronic medical conditions could increase the risk of severe COVID-19 among children

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7 Jun 2021

Seroprevalence study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in domestic cats

To monitor the occurrence of trans-species transmission, researchers from the Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany, conducted a survey of seroprevalence in domestic cats.

7 Jun 2021

Researchers uncover molecular mechanism linking Parkinson’s disease with COVID-19

The study findings reveal that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection results in abnormal modification of some lung proteins, which are subsequently transported to the brain via exosomes. In the brain, these modified lung proteins disrupt the normal functioning of proteins that are related to Parkinson’s disease.

7 Jun 2021

Global land-use changes increase risk of zoonotic coronavirus transmission from bats

Global land-use changes — including forest fragmentation, agricultural expansion and concentrated livestock production — are creating “hotspots” favorable for bats that carry coronaviruses and where conditions are ripe for the diseases to jump from bats to humans, finds a new analysis by researchers at the Politecnico di Milano, University of California, Berkeley and Massey University.

7 Jun 2021

Study explores therapeutic potential of exploiting autophagy cascade against COVID-19

Researchers recently reviewed current knowledge on links between autophagy and coronaviruses and how this knowledge can be used to repurpose autophagy modulators as potential treatment options for COVID-19. The review is published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

7 Jun 2021

Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 with a single dose skin patch

Researchers from Australia recently reported a high-density microarray patch used to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 spike subunit vaccine to the skin directly. They used a combination of a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein vaccine candidate and the high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) vaccine delivery platform.

7 Jun 2021

Impact of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection on neonatal immunology

Although extensive studies have been carried out on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and evidence exists that pregnant women are at elevated risk of severe COVID-19, the impact of maternal infection on the fetus is not clear. The majority of pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or experience mild symptoms.

7 Jun 2021

Comparison of immunological profiles of SARS-CoV-2 variants

Mutations to the spike protein and receptor-binding domain are responsible for these changes in immunogenic profile, and in a paper recently uploaded to the open access journal Antibiotics by Ambrose et al. (May 6th, 2021) these mutations are correlated with various disease parameters by in silico methods, finding that particular features are responsible for the increased infectiousness and lesser disease severity observed in these lineages.

6 Jun 2021

COVID-19 symptoms in the feet

In a review paper recently uploaded to the Journal of Clinical Medicine by Jimenez-Cebrian et al. (May 19th, 2021), the clinical manifestations of COVID-19 in feet, in particular, are reviewed, finding that vascular, dermatological, and neurological symptoms have been widely reported.

6 Jun 2021

High baseline levels of inflammatory cytokines linked to thrombotic events in patients with COVID-19

In a recent open-access paper published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, researchers from Iran and Germany show that high baseline levels of inflammatory cytokines measured during admission put patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at increased risk of developing coagulopathy, thrombotic events – and even death.

6 Jun 2021

Standardizable assay detects T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection

Researchers in the UK have developed a high-throughput standardizable assay that accurately detects T cell responses to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

6 Jun 2021

New data from CDC on effectiveness of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines

Researchers in the United States have conducted a study demonstrating the real-world effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines at preventing infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

6 Jun 2021