Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Global leaders pledge to share COVID-19 vaccine doses internationally at the G7 summit

In a landmark agreement at the G7 summit, held in Cornwall, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, global leaders have pledged to share COVID-19 vaccine doses internationally, in support of global equitable access and to help end the acute phase of the pandemic.

15 Jun 2021

CDC study looks at SARS-CoV-2 testing among returning cruise ship travelers

In a recent study published on the preprint server medRxiv*, a group of researchers discusses the RT-PCR results and symptoms experienced by the travelers to illustrate the viral dynamics during asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 infection.

15 Jun 2021

Inclusion of biological uncertainty, latest data can improve prediction accuracy of epidemic models

The inclusion of biological uncertainty and the latest case data can significantly improve the prediction accuracy of standard epidemiological models of virus transmission, new research led by KAUST and the Kuwait College of Science and Technology (KCST) has shown.

15 Jun 2021

SARS-CoV-2 oral vaccine booster shows promise in animal tests

In a recent study published on the pre-print bioRxiv* server, a group of Israeli researchers discusses their progress towards developing an oral multi-antigen SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

15 Jun 2021

UMSOM researchers develop two accurate, rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have developed two rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19 that are nearly as accurate as the gold-standard test currently used in laboratories.

15 Jun 2021

Study finds low rate of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection for patients with severe illness

A review of more than 9,000 U.S. patients with severe COVID-19 infection showed less than 1% contracted the illness again, with an average reinfection time of 3.5 months after an initial positive test.

15 Jun 2021

Exposure to common cold virus can protect against COVID-19 infection

Exposure to the rhinovirus, the most frequent cause of the common cold, can protect against infection by the virus which causes COVID-19, Yale researchers have found.

15 Jun 2021

SNPRC at Texas Biomed awarded $37 million NIH grant to continue operations into 2026

The Southwest National Primate Research Center at Texas Biomedical Research Institute has been awarded more than $37 million from the National Institutes of Health to continue operations into 2026.

15 Jun 2021

New antibody testing study finds evidence of early COVID-19 infections in the U.S.

A new antibody testing study examining samples originally collected through the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in five states earlier than had initially been reported.

15 Jun 2021

RBD and NTD antibody cocktail could prevent the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 escape mutants

A new bioRxiv* preprint demonstrates how a combination of antibodies to two different regions on the viral spike could enhance neutralization efficiency as well as prevent the emergence of resistant variants.

15 Jun 2021

Does SARS-CoV-2 show seasonal variation in transmission in temperate countries?

The need to understand how and why such spread occurs is vital to containing it. A new medRxiv* preprint describes a significant reduction in transmission during the summer (by 42%), which is comparable to the impact of the most effective non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).

15 Jun 2021

Fusogenicity and resistance of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 compared to D614G

A new study, released as a preprint on the bioRxiv* server, describes the biological effects induced by mutations in two circulating VOCs. These are the alpha and beta strains, also called B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, respectively.

15 Jun 2021

Potent antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 can be produced without T follicular helper cells, suggests study

It has been uncertain whether antibodies produced via this non-canonical pathway are protective against SARS-CoV-2. In a new study, recently released as a preprint on the bioRxiv*server, the neutralization potency of these antibodies is compared with those traditionally produced in germinal center-based antiviral responses.

15 Jun 2021

Being vaccinated doesn’t mean you must go maskless. Here’s why.

For more than a year, public health officials have repeatedly told us that masks save lives. They've warned us to keep our distance from our neighbors, who've morphed into disease vectors before our eyes.

15 Jun 2021

Carbon-based antimicrobial nanoweapons to fight COVID-19

In a recent review article published in the journal ACS Nano, interdisciplinary researchers from across the world evaluated the role of carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs), such as fullerene, carbon dots, graphene, and their derivatives as promising alternatives to combat COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) and other microbial infections.

15 Jun 2021

Alkaloids show potential as treatments for COVID-19

To further study these organic compounds, researchers from Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Iran, and Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, reviewed the role of alkaloids as a potential antiviral, specifically against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). They presented the chemistry, plant sources, and antiviral effects of alkaloids and their anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect.

15 Jun 2021

Analysis of COVID-19 patients with repeatedly positive SARS-CoV-2 tests

New research published on the medRxiv preprint server provides a detailed analysis of COVID-19 patients who had repeated positive PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a large US COVID-19 electronic health record (EHR) database.

15 Jun 2021

REGEN-COV antibody cocktail shown to significantly lower SARS-CoV-2 viral load

In human trials, the interim analysis of 275 participants showed REGEN-COV quickly reduced viral loads. Moreover, this reduction was much faster in people who did not have a high viral load when they started treatment.

15 Jun 2021

Immune memory responses differ between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A

Researchers in Canada have shown that the long-lasting immunity that develops following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is characterized by different T cell responses than those observed for influenza A virus-specific immune memory.

14 Jun 2021

SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern could cause further epidemics in UK

The team – from the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester, and the University of Oxford – say that a variant of concern that has either a substantial transmission advantage over resident lineages, or the ability to evade vaccine- or infection-induced immunity, can be expected to drive a wave of infections and hospitalizations similar to that seen in the country during the winter of 2020-21.

14 Jun 2021