Category: Published Research
Can mRNA vaccines transform the fight against Ebola?
(Nature) COVID-19 vaccines that rely on mRNA technology are credited with transforming humanity’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The vaccines — one made by drug giant Pfizer with German biotech firm BioNTech, another by US pharmaceutical company Moderna — sped through clinical trials in just months and gained approval from major regulatory bodies less than a year after […]
Nov 14, 2022
(Lancet) Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of hospitalisation in infants. The burden of RSV infection in healthy term infants has not yet been established. Accurate health-care burden data in healthy infants are necessary to determine RSV immunisation policy when RSV immunisation becomes available.
Nov 11, 2022
Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection
(Nature) First infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with increased risk of acute and postacute death and sequelae in various organ systems. Whether reinfection adds to risks incurred after first infection is unclear. Here we used the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ national healthcare database to build a cohort of […]
Nov 11, 2022
(Nature) SARS-CoV-2 infection causes COVID-19, a severe acute respiratory disease associated with cardiovascular complications including long-term outcomes. The presence of virus in cardiac tissue of patients with COVID-19 suggests this is a direct, rather than secondary, effect of infection. Here, by expressing individual SARS-CoV-2 proteins in the Drosophila heart, we demonstrate interaction of virus Nsp6 with host […]
Nov 8, 2022
Pulmonary Dysfunction after Pediatric COVID-19
(Radiology) Long COVID occurs in lower frequency in children and adolescents than in adults. Morphologic and free-breathing phase-resolved functional low-field MRI may identify persistent pulmonary manifestations after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Nov 4, 2022
(CDC) We investigated a cluster of SARS-CoV-2 infections in a quarantine hotel in Taiwan in December 2021. The cluster involved 3 case patients who lived in nonadjacent rooms on different floors. They had no direct contact during their stay. By direct exploration of the space above the room ceilings, we found residual tunnels, wall defects, […]
Nov 4, 2022
Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank
(BMJ) To examine association of COVID-19 with incident cardiovascular events in 17 871 UK Biobank cases between March 2020 and 2021. COVID-19 cases were defined using health record linkage. Each case was propensity score-matched to two uninfected controls on age, sex, deprivation, body mass index, ethnicity, diabetes, prevalent ischaemic heart disease (IHD), smoking, hypertension and high […]
Nov 1, 2022
(Nature) An accurate estimator of the real-time fatality rate is warranted to monitor the progress of ongoing epidemics, hence facilitating the policy-making process. However, most of the existing estimators fail to capture the time-varying nature of the fatality rate and are often biased in practice. A simple real-time fatality rate estimator with adjustment for reporting […]
Nov 1, 2022
Recurrence of Symptoms Following a 2-Day Symptom Free Period in Patients With COVID-19
(JAMA) Recurrence of symptoms after finishing treatment for COVID-19 with nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) has become increasingly recognized.1–3 The biological underpinning of this phenomenon is unclear, and its etiology may be multifactorial, including rapid clearance of nirmatrelvir coupled with delayed immune responses or possible development of drug resistance.1–3 The contribution of treatment to symptom rebound needs to be differentiated […]
Oct 28, 2022
Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank
(BMJ) Objective To examine association of COVID-19 with incident cardiovascular events in 17 871 UK Biobank cases between March 2020 and 2021. Methods COVID-19 cases were defined using health record linkage. Each case was propensity score-matched to two uninfected controls on age, sex, deprivation, body mass index, ethnicity, diabetes, prevalent ischaemic heart disease (IHD), smoking, hypertension and high […]
Oct 25, 2022