Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Long-term care workers, grieving and under siege, brace for COVID’s next round

In the middle of the night, Stefania Silvestri lies in bed remembering her elderly patients' cries.

16 Nov 2020

Homeless shelters grapple with COVID safety as cold creeps in

Ben Barnes has slept in abandoned buildings, hallways and alleys. For the past year or so, he's been staying at the city's largest homeless shelter, Pacific Garden Mission, in the shadows of the famous skyline.

16 Nov 2020

Study sheds new light on the immune system response to COVID-19

A team of immunology experts from research organizations in Belgium and the UK has come together to apply their pioneering research methods to put individuals' COVID-19 responses under the microscope.

16 Nov 2020

Antiviral immune response is suppressed in COVID-19 patients compared to flu patients

Rather than life-threatening hyperinflammation, most adults with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 have a suppressed viral immune response when compared to adults with another viral respiratory infection, influenza. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis led research that suggests most COVID-19 patients are not candidates for treatment with steroids such as dexamethasone.

16 Nov 2020

Difference in antibody evolution could predict COVID-19 outcomes

For COVID-19, the difference between surviving and not surviving severe disease may be due to the quality, not the quantity, of the patients' antibody development and response, suggests a new Cell paper published by Galit Alter, PhD, a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard.

16 Nov 2020

Global health leaders discuss the urgent funding needs of ACT Accelerator

Heads of state, global health leaders, scientists, and the private sector have come together at the Paris Peace Forum this week to discuss how to meet the urgent funding needs of the ACT Accelerator.

16 Nov 2020

New Timestrip indicators to support the use of promising coronavirus vaccines

Timestrip®, the developer of smart indicator technology, has moved fast to develop a range of products that support use of the coronavirus vaccines now promising to become available.

16 Nov 2020

Primate model helps detect features of COVID-19 virus

Features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, which could be useful for developing vaccines and treatment strategies, were identified using a nonhuman primate model developed at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB).

16 Nov 2020

Study explains why conservatives and liberals differ on COVID-19 threat

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, political ideology has been perhaps the strongest predictor of consumers' perceptions of the coronavirus' threat.

16 Nov 2020

Researchers use aerosolized molecules to shut down proteins generated by coronavirus

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have successfully used molecules comprised of small strands of RNA to shut down the production of destructive proteins generated by the COVID-19 virus.

16 Nov 2020

New data highlights safety concerns on rAAV vectors used in gene therapy

New data highlight safety concerns for the replication of recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors commonly used in gene therapy.

16 Nov 2020

PARP inhibitor, stenoparib inhibits pre- and post-entry processes of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

A team of researchers from the Northern Arizona University evaluated a new PARP inhibitor, stenoparib, which has recently advanced to Stage II of clinical trials to treat ovarian cancer. Their study, an initial report on in vitro stenoparib activity against human coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2, has been published on the preprint server bioRxiv*.

15 Nov 2020

Strategizing pediatric healthcare preparedness for the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

The paper, put together by a team of scientists based in the United Kingdom and Italy, also underscored the need for healthcare policies to account for the very real possibility of inadequate protective personal equipment (PPE), staff and hospital capacity, aggravated by the increased number of pediatric infections.

15 Nov 2020

Measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission through wastewater in poor regions

A new paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment on November 10, 2020, discusses the reality of the virus’s wastewater transmission. Overall, the researchers found that wastewater transmission would have a disproportionate impact on countries with low development indices.

15 Nov 2020

Study looks at SARS-CoV-2 RNA contamination in COVID-19 isolation ward of a hospital

To try and shed more light on SARS-CoV-2’s transmission, a research group based in Italy examined a COVID-19 isolation ward in a Milan hospital to evaluate the level of contamination present in the air and on surfaces with SARS-CoV-2 RNA (the virus’s genetic material).

15 Nov 2020

Promising new compounds to potentially treat novel coronaviruses identified

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy have discovered new drug compounds to potentially treat the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

15 Nov 2020

Drugs targeting neutrophils could reduce ARDS in severe COVID-19

Scientists in Taiwan recently published a report on their use of anti-neutrophil strategies to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) – a life-threatening condition that can arise in critical COVID-19 cases – in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics.

15 Nov 2020

New methodology predicts mutation hotspots in SARS-CoV-2 virus

Researchers in Sweden and China have presented a new methodology for predicting mutation “hotspot” sites within severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) - the agent responsible for the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

15 Nov 2020

Arthritis drug may improve COVID-19 survival among elderly patients

A type of arthritis drug may reduce the risk of dying for elderly patients with COVID-19.

15 Nov 2020

WHO approves first ever vaccine for emergency use to address polio

WHO today listed the nOPV2 vaccine (Bio Farma, Indonesia) for emergency use to address the rising cases of a vaccine-derived polio strain in a number of African and East Mediterranean countries.

15 Nov 2020