Scientists model 'true prevalence' of COVID-19 throughout pandemic
(University of Washington) University of Washington scientists have developed a statistical framework that incorporates key COVID-19 data -- such as case counts and deaths due to COVID-19 -- to model the true prevalence of this disease in the United States and individual states. Their approach projects that in the U.S. as many as 60% of COVID-19 cases went undetected as of March 7, 2021, the last date for which the dataset they employed is available. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 26, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Safety of second dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines after first-dose allergic reactions
(JAMA Network) What The Study Did: Researchers examined the safety of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in patients who experienced an allergic reaction to the first dose. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 26, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Anticipate a resurgence of respiratory viruses in young children
(Canadian Medical Association Journal) Canada should anticipate a resurgence of a childhood respiratory virus as COVID-19 physical distancing measures are relaxed, authors warn in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.210919. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 26, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

New insights into immune responses to malaria
(Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) Advanced technologies have been used to solve a long-standing mystery about why some people develop serious illness when they are infected with the malaria parasite, while others carry the infection asymptomatically. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

UMass Amherst grad student awarded fellowship for food allergy research
(University of Massachusetts Amherst) University of Massachusetts Amherst food science Ph.D. candidate Cassandra Suther has received a prestigious predoctoral fellowship of $180,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) to study the effect of norovirus on the development and severity of food allergies. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

New 'atlas' charts how antibodies attack spike protein variants
(Brigham and Women's Hospital) Now, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and collaborators have created an " atlas " that charts how 152 different antibodies attack a major piece of the SARS-CoV-2 machinary, the spike protein, as it has evolved since 2020. Their study, published in Cell, highlights antibodies that are able to neutralize the newer strains, while identifying regions of the spike protein that have become more resistant to attack. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Why do some people get severe COVID-19? The nose may know
(Boston Children's Hospital) The body's first encounter with the coronavirus happens in the nose and throat. New work in Cell suggests that responses in this early battleground help determine who will develop severe COVID-19 and who will have only mild or no illness. It used single-cell RNA sequencing of all the cell types recovered from nasal swabs of people with and without COVID-19. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Advantages of intranasal vaccination against SARS-CoV-2
(University of Alabama at Birmingham) There are many reasons that an intranasal vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be helpful in the fight against COVID-19 infections, University of Alabama at Birmingham immunologists Fran Lund, Ph.D., and Troy Randall, Ph.D., write in a viewpoint article in the journal Science. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Early antiviral response in the nose may determine the course of COVID-19
(Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard) How early is the course of COVID-19, mild or severe, determined? In Cell, researchers examined nasal cells sampled from patients at the time of diagnosis, looking for differences between those who developed severe disease and those who experienced a mild illness. Cells from patients who developed severe COVID-19 exhibited a more muted antiviral response. If the early stages of infection can determine disease severity, it opens a path for scientists to develop early therapeutic interventions. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

AZ heroes study awarded $15M to continue, expand evaluation of COVID-19 immunity
(University of Arizona Health Sciences) A research study that started by analyzing COVID-19 immunity and vaccine effectiveness in frontline workers is broadening to include children. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Less-sensitive COVID-19 tests may still achieve optimal results if enough people tested
(PLOS) A computational analysis of COVID-19 tests suggests that, in order to minimize the number of infections in a population, the amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of the tests that are used. Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Sonipat, India, and Sandeep Krishna of the National Centre for Biological Sciences TIFR, Bangalore, India, present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 22, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Global warming may limit spread of dengue fever, new research finds
(Penn State) Infection with dengue virus makes mosquitoes more sensitive to warmer temperatures, according to new research led by Penn State researchers. The team also found that infection with the bacterium Wolbachia, which has recently been used to control viral infections in mosquitoes, also increases the thermal sensitivity of the insects. The findings suggest that global warming could limit the spread of dengue fever but could also limit the effectiveness of Wolbachia as a biological control agent. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 22, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

Prostate cancer treatment among black, white patients during pandemic
This study included 647 patients with untreated nonmetastatic prostate cancer (269 patients during the pandemic and 378 from before the pandemic). During the initial COVID-19 lockdown, only 1% of Black men underwent prostatectomy, while 26% of white patients did. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 22, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news

COVID-19: Patients with malnutrition may be more likely to have severe outcomes
(Scientific Reports) Adults and children with COVID-19 who have a history of malnutrition may have an increased likelihood of death and the need for mechanical ventilation, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - July 22, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news