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Tag: research

Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

NIH announces launch of clinical trial for nasal COVID vaccine

Published July 2, 2024

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) yesterday announced the launch of a phase 1 trial of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19, which also marks the first National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) trial conducted as part of the government’s Project NextGen—an effort designed to advance the development of next-generation vaccines against the disease.

In an NIH statement, NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, said first-generation COVID vaccines have greatly mitigated the toll of the disease and are still effective for preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. She added, however, that they aren’t as good at preventing illness and battling milder disease.

“With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines, that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission,” she said.

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Topic: pregnancyView all posts for the topic: pregnancy

COVID infection endangers pregnancies and newborns. Why aren’t parents being warned?

Published June 21, 2024

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Published by: The Gauntlet
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By Julia Doubleday

In the movie Knocked Up, Seth Rogan’s character refers to the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting as “basically a giant list of things you can’t do.” It’s a line that pokes fun at the seemingly ever-expanding list of foods, behaviors and hazards that pregnant people are encouraged to avoid in order to reduce health risks to themselves and their babies.

Despite pre-natal education’s reputation for warning new mothers of every possible danger from jumping on trampolines to eating soft cheeses, contracting a vascular virus that increases risk of pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, miscarriage and stillbirth is being ignored. Let’s look at the evidence.

Continue readingCOVID infection endangers pregnancies and newborns. Why aren’t parents being warned?
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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

OSPN responds to Ontario’s cut of the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative

Published June 20, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Science Policy Network
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The Ottawa Science Policy Network (OSPN) is concerned with the decision of the Ontario Government to cancel the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative (WSI) in Ontario. This cut of $15 million per year employs researchers, and offers significant returns for public health and safety.

The Wastewater Surveillance Initiative was adopted in January 2021 which led to a team of groundbreaking and internationally recognized work led by scientists at Ontario universities and research institutes. Ontario is a world leader in this field of wastewater research; tracking the impact of COVID-19 on communities through wastewater has helped shape public policy decisions and informed Ontarians of risks within the population. This funding not only provided the necessary means to track COVID-19 levels within the population but was further expanded to screen for Influenza, RSV, and M-Pox. Elizabeth Payne, a correspondent for Ottawa Citizen notes that wastewater surveillance at the start of seasonal RSV prevented 295 pediatric hospitalizations and 950 medically attended hospital visits, saving Ontario $3.5 million.

As of July 31st 2024 the Ontario government will no longer be investing in the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative, mentioning a key reason being that the Federal government will be expanding their program through the Public Health Agency of Canada. However, this leaves research groups and graduate students who rely on Ontario funding in a precarious position as the future of their funding remains uncertain.

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Topic: seniorsView all posts for the topic: seniors

A new look at why old age is linked to severe, even fatal COVID

Published June 15, 2024

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Published by: Medical Xpress
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By Delthia Ricks

A longstanding question has nagged the COVID battle for more than four years: Why does the infection cause severe disease in older people? The question has remained despite a global cadre of medical investigators having produced some of the reasons—but not the entire story.

Ever since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, it has been abundantly clear that older adults are at substantial risk of severe, even fatal COVID. Yet, the underlying mechanisms for their susceptibility were not always clear despite studies that took co-morbidities into account, like diabetes, heart and lung disorders, and other chronic vagaries of age that can worsen a bout with an infectious disease.

To date, scientists have blamed a dysregulated immune system, an age-related affinity toward excessive blood clotting, and an overall decline in the key soldiers of the adaptive immune system, T and B cells, to explain increased risks for severe COVID in the aging population. And while all of those factors may play a role, an inevitable question looms large: Why?

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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Sudbury researcher disappointed Ontario ends COVID-19 wastewater surveillance

Published June 10, 2024

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Published by: CBC News
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A researcher in Sudbury, Ont., says he’s disappointed the province is ending its wastewater surveillance program to track COVID-19 and other viruses in municipal systems.

“I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel sad to let the people go,” said Gustavo Ybazeta, a researcher at the Health Sciences North Research Institute.

Ybazeta said six people work at the lab, testing local wastewater for COVID-19 and other viruses like influenza and even sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and chlamydia.

While they will continue to conduct research on ways to monitor for viruses in wastewater, losing the surveillance program means at least half of those scientists will lose their jobs, he says.

Ybazeta said there are a dozen labs across Ontario that face the same fate.

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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Cutting wastewater surveillance is short-sighted

Published June 8, 2024

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Published by: Toronto Star
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Ontario to halt COVID wastewater surveillance program, June 4

The Ontario government’s plan to axe funding for wastewater surveillance is irresponsible. Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2, influenza and other viruses. Without funding, we will lose important information about the prevalence of these significant health concerns.

The timing of the announcement is astonishing. We are faced with an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and new hyper-infectious subvariants are spreading rapidly. We will be hindered in providing an early warning system to inform everyone about new subvariants and emerging pandemic threats such as avian flu.

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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Ontario’s wastewater testing program to be replaced by a federal program that is significantly smaller

Published June 6, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

When Ontario’s wastewater surveillance program is shut down next month it will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program. That potential information gap worries some researchers and public health experts, especially at a time when COVID-19 cases are starting to tick up and avian influenza is spreading rapidly.

Ontario’s wastewater testing initiative, considered a world leader, currently tests wastewater for signs of infectious diseases including COVID, influenza, RSV and more at 58 locations across the province. The provincial government plans to pull the plug on the program at the end of July, saying it wants to avoid duplication with an expanding pan-Canadian wastewater surveillance program.

That new federal program includes plans to conduct wastewater surveillance in five Ontario cities. Four of the five cities have not yet been selected.

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Topic: cancerView all posts for the topic: cancer

‘Unusual’ cancers emerged after the pandemic. Doctors ask if covid is to blame.

Published June 6, 2024

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Published by: The Washington Post
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By Ariana Eunjung Cha

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Kashyap Patel looked forward to his team’s Friday lunches. All the doctors from his oncology practice would gather in the open-air courtyard under the shadow of a tall magnolia tree and catch up. The atmosphere tended to the lighthearted and optimistic. But that week, he was distressed.

It was 2021, a year into the coronavirus pandemic, and as he slid into a chair, Patel shared that he’d just seen a patient in his 40s with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and lethal cancer of the bile ducts that typically strikes people in their 70s and 80s. Initially, there was silence, and then one colleague after another said they’d recently treated patients who had similar diagnoses. Within a year of that meeting, the office had recorded seven such cases.

“I’ve been in practice 23 years and have never seen anything like this,” Patel, CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, later recalled. Asutosh Gor, another oncologist, agreed: “We were all shaken.”

Continue reading‘Unusual’ cancers emerged after the pandemic. Doctors ask if covid is to blame.
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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Ontario is a ‘world leader’ in wastewater surveillance for COVID. The province’s decision to close testing sites will end that, experts say

Published June 5, 2024

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Published by: Toronto Star
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By Megan Ogilvie

Researchers are warning that Ontario’s decision to shut down its wastewater surveillance program that proved crucial in tracking COVID-19 will limit the province’s ability to rapidly respond to infectious disease threats, including new COVID variants, respiratory viruses and bird flu.

A key member of the waterwater surveillance program says Ontario has been a “world leader and now we’ll probably be one of the passengers” by the scale-back that will also stifle research.

Cancelling the provincial surveillance system — the largest in Canada — will drastically reduce the number of testing sites in the province, experts say. They also caution that shuttering the program will mean that monitoring may no longer take place in smaller communities and in rural and northern areas, potentially missing vulnerable populations.

Continue readingOntario is a ‘world leader’ in wastewater surveillance for COVID. The province’s decision to close testing sites will end that, experts say
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Report: More than 200 symptoms tied to long COVIDElectron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. Image captured and colourized at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. Photo by: NIAID. Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

Report: More than 200 symptoms tied to long COVID

Published June 5, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Stephanie Soucheray

Today a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a number of conclusions about long-COVID diagnosis, symptoms, and impact on daily function, including that the condition can cause more than 200 symptoms, and that a positive COVID-19 test is not necessary to make a long-COVID diagnosis.

The findings are meant to guide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and are published one week before the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is set to offer a new single definition of long COVID that can be used across US governmental groups as a way to streamline treating the condition in the years to come.

“This report offers a comprehensive review of the evidence base for how Long COVID may impact a patient’s ability to engage in normal activities, such as going to work, attending school, or taking care of their families,” said Victor J. Dzau, MD, president of the National Academy of Medicine, in a National Academies press release. “Its findings will be useful to anyone attempting to understand how Long COVID may affect the millions of people in the U.S. who have reported symptoms.”

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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

‘I was shocked’: Ontario to cancel widely used wastewater surveillance program

Published June 4, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

The Ontario government is shutting down the wastewater surveillance program that has provided early warning for incoming waves of COVID-19 and a growing list of other infectious diseases since it was developed.

By the time it ends on July 31, the program that got its start in Ottawa early in the pandemic will be one of the biggest in the world to monitor the spread of infectious diseases through wastewater. Researchers were told of the decision to end funding last week.

Its closure comes at a time when COVID-19 is again beginning to spread through the world after a lull and when the United States and other countries are ramping up wastewater surveillance programs to warn about the possible spread of H5N1 avian influenza.

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Topic: researchView all posts for the topic: research

New electrostatic sampler boosts indoor virus detection speed

Published May 30, 2024

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Published by: Medical Xpress
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By Frontiers Journals

Airborne transmission of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, has been a focal point for infection prevention in multi-use facilities with dense populations. Traditional air samplers often require long sampling times, increasing the risk of false negatives due to RNA degradation. A newly developed electrostatic sampler addresses this issue by increasing the airflow rate and improving collection efficiency.

Researchers from Yonsei University, in collaboration with the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, have developed an electrostatic air sampler that enhances the rapid monitoring of airborne influenza and coronavirus.

The device, capable of high air flow rates, offers significant advancements in detecting viral presence in indoor environments through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. An article on the research is published in Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.

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Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID

COVID can cause new health problems to appear years after infection, according to a study of more than 130,000 patients

Published May 30, 2024

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Published by: Fortune
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By Carolyn Barber

Even as national institutions struggle to coordinate meaningful trials for possible long COVID treatments, researchers continue to tally the damage. New findings suggest that the disease’s reach isn’t merely long—it’s still growing.

Three years after their initial bouts with COVID-19, patients who’d once been hospitalized with the virus remained at “significantly elevated” risk of death or worsening health from long COVID complications, according to a paper published May 30 in Nature Medicine.

Even among those whose initial cases didn’t require a hospital stay, the threat of long COVID and several of its associated issues remained real, the researchers found. And cumulatively, at three years, long COVID results in 91 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) per 1,000 people—DALYs being a measure of years lost to poor health or premature death. That is a higher incidence than either heart disease or cancer.

Continue readingCOVID can cause new health problems to appear years after infection, according to a study of more than 130,000 patients
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Topic: masksView all posts for the topic: masks

Masks work, our comprehensive review has found

Published May 22, 2024

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Published by: The Conversation
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By Trish Greenhalgh, C Raina MacIntyre, David Fisman

When a Texan farm worker caught bird flu from cattle recently, social media was abuzz with rumours. While bird flu is not a human pandemic, scientists and policymakers the world over are keen to prepare as best they can for when such a pandemic emerges – a tricky task, given that science is messy, policy must be pragmatic and people’s values don’t always align.

It’s time for masks to enter the chat. At the beginning of a pandemic caused by a novel or newly mutated virus, there may be no vaccine, no firm knowledge about how bad things will get and no specific treatment. Slowing transmission until more is known will be critical.

Getting most people to wear a mask could nip the outbreak in the bud, preventing a pandemic or lessening its impact. Wearing a mask is inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as lockdowns.

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Topic: mortality rateView all posts for the topic: mortality rate

Four Years On, Covid-19 Remains a Worse Killer Than the Flu, US Study Finds

Published May 15, 2024

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Published by: Bloomberg
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By Jason Gale

We did the 2024 Covid-versus-flu rematch thinking that we may find that risk of death in Covid may have sufficiently declined to become equal with the risk of death from flu. But the reality remains that Covid carries a higher risk of death than the flu. […]

Overall, I think this means that we still need to take Covid seriously. Trivializing it as an inconsequential ‘cold,’ as we often hear, doesn’t mesh or align with reality.

— Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly
Continue readingFour Years On, Covid-19 Remains a Worse Killer Than the Flu, US Study Finds
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COVID virus can infect your eyes and damage visionIllustration of an eye with a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle; with blue, black and coral pink colours. Illustration by Monika Jurczyk / Adobe.
Topic: vision lossView all posts for the topic: vision loss

COVID virus can infect your eyes and damage vision

Published May 15, 2024

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Published by: Futurity
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By Rochita Ghosh / University of Missouri

The virus that causes COVID-19 can breach the protective blood-retinal barrier, leading to potential long-term consequences in the eye, new research shows.

The blood-retinal barrier is designed to protect our vision from infections by preventing microbial pathogens from reaching the retina where they could trigger an inflammatory response with potential vision loss.

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