Tag: covid

Categories : COVIDTags :

Activities That Changed During the Pandemic – and Didn’t Change Back

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Julian Jagtenberg on Pexels

A new analysis describes how people in the UK shifted the amount of time they spent on various activities over various stages of pandemic restrictions and shifted to online versus in-person settings. The findings were published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

When the COVID pandemic began, the U.K. joined many countries in introducing restrictions on people’s movement and social activities to mitigate viral spread. A growing body of research reveals how such restrictions have affected people’s lifestyles worldwide. This study examined how UK residents’ habits changed over time as different restrictions were implemented and lifted.

The researchers conducted six online surveys of UK residents between April 2020 and July 2021 and were ultimately able to follow 203 people who responded to multiple surveys. The surveys included questions about 16 different types of activities respondents participated in during different phases of the pandemic, such as journalling, shopping, and getting active, and whether they participated online or in person.

Statistical analysis of the responses showed that the biggest changes in terms of amount of time spent – as well as the biggest changes in online versus in-person participation – occurred for cultural activities, spending time with others, and travelling. Changes were most pronounced in March to June 2020, corresponding with the first lockdown period, when participation in all 16 activities decreased. The biggest shift from in-person to online participation occurred from March to October 2020, which included the first lockdown followed by relaxation of restrictions.

Cultural activities, such as going to museums, and group activities were the two categories that fell the most, and did not recover to pre-pandemic levels when UK restrictions were lifted on July 19, 2021. During the restrictions, participation was mostly online in these activities. Spending time with family was among the most robust, and remained mostly in-person, though supplemented by online interaction.

These findings could help policymakers understand the impact of their pandemic restrictions. In the future, the researchers plan to investigate how demographic factors, such as age and employment, may have affected the results, as well as long-term mental health implications of the lifestyle changes.

Professor Patty Kostova, leader of the study, added: “This longitudinal research study illustrated citizens’ resilience throughout the stages of the pandemic.”

Lan Li adds: “This longitudinal study determines the frequency and way of people doing activities from Spring 2020 to Summer 2021 during different phases of the COVID pandemic in the UK. The findings provide an invaluable insight into understanding how people in the UK changed their lifestyle, including what activities they do, and how they accessed those activities in light of the COVID pandemic and related public health policy implemented to address the pandemic.”

Source: ScienceDaily

Categories : COVID Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Nitrous Oxide Safe and Effective Therapy for Severe COVID in Pregnancy

On By ModernMedia
Pregnant with ultrasound image
Source: Pixabay

High dose inhaled nitric oxide gas (iNO) is a safe and effective respiratory therapy for pregnant women hospitalised with severe COVID pneumonia, resulting in faster weaning from oxygen and shorter hospital stay, according to a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers reported that the addition of twice-daily nitric oxide to standard of care oxygen therapy decreased the respiratory rate of pregnant women with low oxygenation levels of the blood without causing any side effects.

“To date, very few respiratory treatments to complement supplemental oxygenation in COVID pregnant patients have been tested,” explained the study’s senior author, Lorenzo Berra, MD. “Investigators from all four medical centers that participated in our study agreed that administration of high dose nitric oxide through a snug-fitting mask has enormous potential as a new therapeutic strategy for pregnant patients with COVID.”

Pneumonia triggered by COVID is particularly threatening to pregnant women since it may quickly progress to hypoxaemia, requiring hospitalisation and cardiopulmonary support. “Compared to non-pregnant female patients with COVID, pregnant women are three times more likely to need intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation, or advanced life support, and four times more likely to die,” noted lead author Carlo Valsecchi, MD. “They also face a greater risk of obstetric complications such as preeclampsia, preterm delivery, and stillbirth.”

Nitric oxide is a therapeutic gas that was initially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1999 for inhalation treatment of intubated and mechanically ventilated newborns with hypoxic respiratory failure. With MGH driving many early studies, iNO in high concentrations was also shown to be effective as an antimicrobial in reducing viral replication of SARS-CoV-1 and, more recently, SARS CoV-2. During the first wave of COVID, MGH treated six non-intubated pregnant patients with iNO at high doses of up to 200 parts per million (ppm). Favourable outcomes with iNO led MGH clinicians to offer this treatment to other pregnant patients, and motivated the present study.

Researchers and clinicians from multiple departments in four hospitals – including critical care medicine, respiratory care, and maternal foetal medicine – studied 71 pregnant patients with severe COVID pneumonia admitted to these hospitals, 20 of whom received iNO200 twice daily. The study found that iNO therapy at this dosage, when compared to standard of care alone, resulted in reductions in the need for supplemental oxygen and in hospital and ICU lengths of stay. No adverse events related to the intervention were reported in either mothers or their babies.

“Being able to wean patients from respiratory support quicker could have other profound implications, including reducing stress on women and their families, lowering the risk of hospital-acquired infections, and relieving the burden on the health care system,” noted Dr Berra. “Above all, our study supports the safety of high dose nitric oxide in the pregnant population, and we hope more physicians will consider incorporating it into carefully monitored treatment regimens.”

Source: Massachusetts General Hospital

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Amid Measles Spike, WHO Warns of Outbreaks of Vaccine-preventable Diseases

On By ModernMedia
Syringe injection into the upper arm
Image source: NCI on Unsplash

An increase in measles cases in January and February 2022 is a worrying sign of a heightened risk for the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases and could trigger larger outbreaks, particularly of measles affecting millions of children in 2022, warn WHO and UNICEF.

The agencies warn that pandemic-related disruptions, widening vaccine access inequality, and the under-resourcing of routine immunisation are leaving too many children open to measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

The risk for large outbreaks has increased as communities relax social distancing practices and other anti-COVID measures. Additionally, the displacement of millions of people due to conflicts and crises including in Ukraine, Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan, is causing disruptions in immunisation services, a lack of clean water and sanitation, and overcrowding, all of which increase the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.

Almost 17 338 measles cases were reported worldwide in January and February 2022, compared to 9665 during the first two months of 2021. Measles is highly contagious, so cases tend to show up quickly when vaccinations decline. The agencies are concerned that outbreaks of measles could also forewarn outbreaks of other diseases that do not spread as rapidly.

Apart from its direct, sometimes lethal, effect on the body, the measles virus also weakens the immune system rendering a child more vulnerable for months after to other infectious diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea.  Most cases occur in settings that have faced social and economic hardships due to COVID, conflict or other crises, and have chronically weak health system infrastructure and insecurity.

“Measles is more than a dangerous and potentially deadly disease. It is also an early indication that there are gaps in our global immunization coverage, gaps vulnerable children cannot afford,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director. “It is encouraging that people in many communities are beginning to feel protected enough from COVID to return to more social activities. But doing so in places where children are not receiving routine vaccination creates the perfect storm for the spread of a disease like measles.”  

In 2020, 23 million children missed out on basic childhood vaccines through routine health services, the highest number since 2009 and 3.7 million more than in 2019.

Top 5 countries with reported measles cases in the last 12 months, until April 2022 1

CountryReported Measles casesRate per million casesFirst dose measles coverage (%), 20192First dose measles coverage (%), 20203
Somalia90685544646
Yemen36291196768
Afghanistan3628916466
Nigeria12 341585454
Ethiopia3039266058

As of April 2022, the agencies report 21 large and disruptive measles outbreaks around the world in the last 12 months. Most of the measles cases were reported in Africa and the East Mediterranean region. The figures are likely higher as the pandemic has disrupted surveillance systems globally, with potential underreporting.

Countries with the largest measles outbreaks since the past year include Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Insufficient measles vaccine coverage is the major reason for outbreaks, wherever they occur.

“The COVID pandemic has interrupted immunisation services, health systems have been overwhelmed, and we are now seeing a resurgence of deadly diseases including measles. For many other diseases, the impact of these disruptions to immunisation services will be felt for decades to come,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “Now is the moment to get essential immunisation back on track and launch catch-up campaigns so that everybody can have access to these life-saving vaccines.”

As of 1 April 2022, 57 vaccine-preventable disease campaigns in 43 countries that were scheduled to take place since the start of the pandemic are still postponed, impacting 203 million people, most of whom are children. Of these, 19 are measles campaigns, which put 73 million children at risk of measles due to missed vaccinations. In Ukraine, the measles catch-up campaign of 2019 was interrupted due to the COVID pandemic and thereafter due to the war. Routine and catch-up campaigns are needed wherever access is possible to help make sure there are not repeated outbreaks as in 2017–2019, when there were over 115 000 cases of measles and 41 deaths in the country – this was the highest incidence in Europe.

Coverage at or above 95% with 2 doses of the safe and effective measles vaccine can protect children against measles. However, COVID pandemic related disruptions have delayed the introduction of the second dose of the measles vaccine in many countries.

Source: World Health Organization

Categories : COVIDTags : 1 Comment

Social Distancing in a Shack: Lessons of the Pandemic for SA

On By ModernMedia
Lock with an SA flag

As falling infection rates are beginning to indicate the end of the fifth wave, a paper in the South African Journal of Sciences asks the question – how was it ever feasible for marginalised South Africans to be able to engage in social distancing?

According to a recent seroprevalence study, the vast majority of people in South Africa now have antibodies against COVID in their blood, many acquired through infection and not immunity. The editorial review by Professors Jonathan Jansen and Shabir Madhi, at Stellenbosch University and Wits University, explores the realities of the majority of the population as they struggled under the lockdown.

Just over two years ago, SA garnered praise for instituting one of the harshest lockdowns in the world. In late 2021, while the world panicked over emergence of the Omicron variant, SA led the way with a sharp change in thinking: there was no way now to practically contain COVID with social distancing measures, so it was best to return to as close to normal as possible. This came with an admission that lockdown in SA had failed, and was it doomed from the start with its structural inequalities. SA’s lauded lockdown came with the grotesque spectacle of soldiers forcing people back into their shacks, after all.

Jansen and Madhi considered that a joint UK–SA study found that difficulty adhering to lockdowns or outright noncompliance was largely reported by black Africans in temporary housing. Such conditions entailed lack of savings and access to basic amenities such as private toilets, making lockdown adherence virtually impossible.

Jansen and Madhi observed that inequities were readily apparent, with in-hospital COVID mortality rates being 1.2- to 1.3-fold higher in black African patients, coloured patients and patients of Indian descent compared to white patients. Patients were also 1.5 times more likely to die in public healthcare as opposed to private healthcare, with greater likelihood of ICU admission and mechanical ventilation.

Looking at the impact of gender, voices of experts were mostly (70%) male, Jansen and Madhi noted, and researchers found that COVID had disproportionate impacts on female academics.

The pandemic also brought the ethical question of vaccine mandates, where it was argued that it was permissible for the greater good. But there was a stumbling block of how would consent for enrolment be gained? The SISONKE trial showed that, even among healthcare professionals, informed consent was a problem. Most (71.5%) participated for access to the vaccine, but nearly a third (32%) did not realise that breakthrough infections and adverse events had to be reported two years on.

“Despite the numerous lockdowns and restrictions in South Africa,
the benefits thereof are questionable.”

Overall, studies challenged the benefit of the lockdown. Jansen and Madhi argue that, “Despite the numerous lockdowns and restrictions in South Africa, the benefits thereof are questionable.” Even before the Omicron wave, 73% of South Africans were estimated to have been infected at least once.

SA nevertheless was able to leverage its skills and resources to enter into COVID vaccine manufacture and knowledge sharing, but sustainability ultimately depends on commitment to vaccine programmes in Africa.

Jansen and Madhi stress that the economic costs of the lockdown are ongoing, an by 2021 only 42% of the working population remained employed in SA. Modelling shows that employment might only return to 2018 levels by around 2024 to 2026.

“Consequently, the full societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is yet to materialise; and imposing and retaining ongoing regulations under the pretence of trying to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections, when all indications are that they have failed dismally in the South African context, warrant immediate abandonment.”

Categories : COVIDTags :

Loss of Smell Went Unnoticed as Delta Wave Symptom

On By ModernMedia
Woman smelling jasmine
Photo by Elly Johnson on Unsplash

The loss of smell and taste with a COVID infection during the delta wave was a prevalent symptom and wasn’t prevented by vaccination, suggests a new study is published in the journal Med.

The small Ohio State University study also found that some people with the earliest COVID infections were continuing to experience loss of these senses months later without realising it.

In participants with active infections during the delta surge, a majority (22 of 25) had been vaccinated. Objective screenings found that 100% were experiencing a diminished or lost sense of smell – but only 54.5% self-reported any problem with odour detection.

“We’re getting this quick communication out as an early warning. We need to continue to take a closer look at COVID infection’s impact on smell and taste,” said Dr Kai Zhao, associate professor of otolaryngology in Ohio State’s College of Medicine and senior author of the study. “Even if COVID doesn’t cause death or hospitalisation, it can have long-lasting effects on some of our sensory functions.

“A lot of people are potentially suffering, which is probably not appreciated by society.”

Data for this study emerged from an earlier project the researchers started to test the use of hard candy as a screening tool for the loss of taste and smell in populations at risk for exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

As part of that work, the team used an existing objective screening tool to collect sensory function data from 123 never-infected control participants and 65 people who had previous or active COVID infections. During the delta surge, the researchers became alarmed by what they found.

“At that time, there were a lot of speculations about whether smell loss is associated with the delta variant and whether the vaccine could protect against these symptoms. So we decided to do this interim data analysis,” Dr Zhao said.

In addition, about three-fourths of participants whose mostly mild COVID infections had occurred before delta’s dominance reported no ongoing smell and taste losses – however, over half of those participants were found by the objective screening, conducted between 102 and 785 days after their infection diagnosis, to have a loss of smell. 

“Many people who had COVID in the past, probably with the original variants of the virus,  underwent some degree of smell loss, even if they didn’t think they did,” said co-author Susan Travers, professor of biosciences in Ohio State’s College of Dentistry. “This suggests the long-term impact on sensory function isn’t captured by self-reporting.”

Beyond these silent smell and taste losses, there were also people who reported that they hadn’t regained taste or smell function for longer than six months, said first author Kym Man, a graduate student in food science and technology. 

“We’re still collecting data on these long haulers, some of whom have been experiencing smell and taste loss for over a year,” she said. 

Effects on the senses include diminished or complete loss of smell and/or taste, disordered smell and/or taste and, least common, smelling odors that are not present at all. 

The sensory function screenings were conducted with a National Institutes of Health tool consisting of a 9-item scratch-and-sniff odour identifier and an intensity rating of bitterness in a sip of quinine. The odour-detection results were adjusted for age – in general, smell sensitivity declines with age, Dr Zhao said. 

Beyond affecting the quality of life, the loss of smell and taste has health ramifications that include negative effects on nutrition intake and a reduced ability to detect danger – such as a fire or spoiled food.

“The disease’s impact on smell and taste is underreported. This is a public health concern that there may potentially be some broader impacts of COVID that we don’t realise are there,” Dr Zhao said. 

Source: Ohio State University

Categories : COVIDTags :

COVID Patient Study Could Change Future Heart and Lung Treatment

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A ground-breaking study into the effects of COVID on ICU patients in has confirmed evidence that the virus is associated with impaired function of the right side of the heart.

According to the study investigations, these findings could play a vital role in not only saving the lives of COVID patients, but also help in treating potentially fatal heart and lung issues generally. The findings will also help preparations for any possible future pandemic.

The first of its kind, the COVID-RV study aimed to help improve future care and outcomes for those most at risk from COVID, by gaining a better understanding of the impact the virus has on the sickest patients who require invasive ventilation.

The study was carried out in 10 ICUs across Scotland, examining 121 critically ill patients who were receiving treatment on ventilators due to the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on their system.

The findings revealed that about a third of the patients in the study showed evidence of abnormalities in the right side of the heart – the area that pumps blood to the lungs.

The study’s lead author Dr Philip McCall said that “A combination of factors create the perfect storm for COVID” to damage the right side of the heart, with possibly fatal outcomes as the lungs are unwilling to receive blood due to the infection.

“This is a very difficult condition to spot, unless you are specifically looking for it. That is why the results of this study are so important. We now know that COVID is a problem associated with not just ventilation, but can affect the heart.”

Chief Investigator of the study Dr Ben Shelley said: “The study has revealed that there is no doubt COVID affects the heart and has a major impact on outcomes for the patient.

“However, now that we know this actually happens, and have a better understanding of how it affects people, we can plan for the future and put in place new care plans and treatments to help combat this.

“For example, ultrasound scans can be used differently to focus in on early warning signs and areas we now know to be at risk.

“If we are able to see these warning signs early enough, clinicians can explore the causes of any complications and start new treatments as soon as possible, potentially improving outcomes for the sickest COVID patients.

“This kind of knowledge is invaluable, not only in combatting any future waves of COVID but in planning for future pandemics to allow people to be treated more effectively. These findings also have several fascinating areas which could be expanded on to help care for other lung conditions in general.”

Nearly half of ventilated patients in the study (47%) died because of COVID, a figure that is comparable to national and international death rates. Experts leading the COVID-RV study from NHS Golden Jubilee said that the overall condition of a person’s heart can have a significant impact on how seriously you will be affected by the potentially deadly virus.

Source: University of Glasgow

Categories : COVIDTags :

No Difference in BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron Severity

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In a study published in Nature, a research team has shown that the BA.2 subvariant of omicron is similar to BA.1 in both the severity of illness it causes and in its ability to cause infection.

BA.2 is the dominant subvariant of Omicron in nearly seven dozen countries. The study’s findings stand in contrast to an earlier study that relied on recombinant virus bearing spike proteins from BA.1 and BA.2.

“That study indicated BA.2 may be more pathogenic than BA.1,” said Prof Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led the present study. “But when we used authentic virus, we found that BA.2 is not more pathogenic.”

Prof Kawaoka and research associate professor and co-author Peter Halfmann, said that their findings suggest that other parts of the omicron virus may attenuate the pathogenicity of its spike proteins alone.

Relying on rodent models for the disease, researchers and their collaborators tested viruses isolated from human samples. Both subvariants of omicron caused less severe illness compared to earlier strains, including delta and the original wild strain of the virus.

The study team also found that existing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs remain effective against BA.2.

However, plasma from vaccinated people and from people who recovered from earlier infections was less effective at neutralising both subvariants of omicron compared to earlier virus strains, and plasma from people infected with BA.1 was less effective at neutralising BA.2.

But the researchers also found that plasma from people who were vaccinated and then infected with BA.1 or earlier variants exhibited a smaller decrease in effectiveness against BA.2.

“If you’re vaccinated and then infected, you’re protected against many different variants,” said Prof Kawaoka, especially compared to prior infection alone or vaccination alone.

The researchers are now testing the newest sub-variants of omicron, including BA.2.12.1, which has begun to rapidly spread in New York state.

Source: University of Wisconsin

Categories : COVID VaccinesTags :

Did a Flu Vaccine Reduce Severe COVID Risk by 89%?

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Vaccine injection
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In a study of more than 30 000 health-care workers in Qatar, those who got a flu jab were 89% less likely to develop severe COVID over the next few months.

The study, which is published in Nature, was conducted in late 2020, before COVID vaccines were rolled out. Its findings align with previous work suggesting that ramping up the immune system using influenza vaccines and other jabs could help the body to fend off the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

In the early months of the pandemic, there was great interest as to whether existing vaccines could confer some protection against SARS-CoV-2. But collecting strong evidence for such an effect is difficult, because people who sought out vaccination for other diseases could also make lifestyle choices that reduce the odds of catching COVID.

To reduce this ‘healthy-user effect’, a team led by Laith Jamal Abu-Raddad, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar in Doha, analysed the health records of 30 774 medical workers in the country. There is probably less variation in health-related behaviour among such workers than in the general population, reducing (but not eliminating) bias, Abu-Raddad said.

The researchers tracked 518 workers who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and matched them to more than 2000 study participants who had tested negative for the virus. Those who had received an influenza vaccine that season were 30% less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2, and 89% less likely to develop severe COVID, compared with workers who had not (although the number of severe cases was small in both groups). The study was posted on the medRxiv preprint server on 10 May.

Günther Fink, an epidemiologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said that the Qatar analysis makes it less likely that other studies reporting the same link were a fluke. His team reported that flu vaccines were associated with lower mortality in hospitalised COVID patients in Brazil.

“This is an important piece of evidence,” says Mihai Netea, an infectious-disease specialist at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The observation that influenza vaccines are linked to a reduction in not just SARS-CoV-2 infections, but also disease severity, strongly suggests that the protection is genuine, he adds.

How long this protection lasts is unclear. Among those in the Qatar study who had the flu jab and later contracted COVID, Abu-Raddad’s team recorded SARS-CoV-2 infections occurring, on average, about six weeks after vaccination. “I don’t expect to see this effect lasting long at all,” he says. Netea guesses that the benefits last for between six months and two years.

Exactly why flu vaccines, which are inactivated viruses, would also protect against COVID is unclear. Vaccines teach the immune system about specific pathogens, but they also stimulate broad-acting antiviral defences, said Netea, who has found signs of such responses in flu-vaccine recipients.

Netea’s team is also working to better quantify the benefits of vaccines targeting influenza and other diseases against COVID. His team has launched a randomised, placebo-controlled trial in Brazil that will test whether influenza and measles–mumps–rubella vaccines can protect against COVID, fully excluding the healthy-user effect.

Knowing that vaccines for flu and other diseases can offer protection against COVID, even if only partial and for a limited period, could limit the damage caused by a future pandemic before a vaccine for that disease is developed, Netea argues. “If you have something in the beginning, you could save millions of lives.”

Source: Nature

Categories : COVID UncategorizedTags :

Omicron-derived Immunity Protects Less against Other Variants

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In unvaccinated individuals, omicron-derived immunity provides little long-term immunity against other variants, according to new research in the journal Nature.

In experiments using mice and blood samples from omicron-infected, the team found that the omicron variant induces only a weak immune response. In vaccinated individuals, this weak response helped strengthen overall protection against a variety of COVID strains. In contrast, the immune response in unvaccinated individuals failed to confer broad, robust protection against other strains.

“In the unvaccinated population, an infection with omicron might be roughly equivalent to getting one shot of a vaccine,” said Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and co-senior author of the new work. “It confers a little bit of protection against COVID, but it’s not very broad.”

A weaker infection

When it emerged in late 2021, omicron infection was soon observed to cause less severe disease, but whether it conferred broad, long-term immunity was not known.

“When the omicron variant first emerged, a lot of people wondered whether it could essentially act as a vaccine for people who didn’t want to get vaccinated, eliciting a strong and broad-acting immune response,” said Irene Chen, co-first author of the new study and graduate student in Ott’s lab.

To find the answer, the team of researchers first examined the effect of omicron in mice. In the omicron-infected mice, despite the milder symptoms, the immune system still generated the T cells and antibodies typically seen in response to other viruses.

“We demonstrated in this study that the lower pathogenicity of omicron is not because the virus cannot take hold,” said Nadia Roan, PhD, an associate investigator at Gladstone.

This means the difference in symptoms and immune response due to other reasons, such as lower replication or the type of antibodies that are generated.

No cross-variant protection

The researchers took blood samples from mice infected with the ancestral, delta, or omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 and measured the ability of their immune cells and antibodies to recognise five different viral variants – ancestral (WA1), alpha, beta, delta, and omicron.

Blood from uninfected animals was unable to neutralise any of the viruses. Samples from WA1-infected animals could neutralise alpha and, to a lesser degree, the beta and delta virus – but not omicron. Samples from delta-infected mice could neutralise delta, alpha and, to a lesser degree, the omicron and beta virus.

Blood from omicron-infected mice could only neutralise the omicron variant.

The team confirmed these results using blood from ten unvaccinated people who had been infected with omicron, and found their blood was unable to neutralise other variants. When they tested blood from 11 unvaccinated people who had been infected with delta, the samples could neutralise delta and, as had been seen in mice, the other variants to a lesser extent.

When they repeated the experiments with blood from vaccinated people, the results were different: vaccinated individuals with confirmed omicron or delta breakthrough infections all showed the ability to neutralize all the tested variants, conferring higher protection.

“When it comes to other variants that might evolve in the future, we can’t predict exactly what would happen, but based on these results, I’d suspect that unvaccinated people who were infected with omicron will have very little protection,” said Ott. “But on the contrary, vaccinated individuals are likely to be more broadly protected against future variants, especially if they had a breakthrough infection.”

Categories : COVIDTags :

Oestrogen from Hormone Replacement Therapy Reduces COVID Mortality

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Older woman smiling
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A new study in Family Practice reported that receiving oestrogen in the form of hormone replacement therapy within six months of a recorded diagnosis of COVID was associated with a reduction in mortality from the disease.

While men and women are equally susceptible to the infection, men tend to have more severe disease, with higher rates of hospitalisation and mortality. A recent 38-country review of sex differences in COVID found men to have a 1.7 times higher mortality rate than women. Younger women or those with higher oestrogen levels are less likely to experience COVID complications.

Earlier studies have also shown that women have faster and greater immune responses to viral infections. Similar trends has been observed in previous pandemics, including the SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus) and MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus) outbreaks.

The reason for these sex differences is uncertain. Limited recent observational data suggest that oestrogen may reduce the severity of COVID disease. This study investigated the association between hormone replacement therapy or combined oral contraception use, and the likelihood of death in women with COVID. Researchers investigated combined oral contraception, which contains oestrogen, because some Recent observational data suggests that women taking oral contraceptives have a lower risk of acquiring COVID.

Investigators used a retrospective cohort with medical records from the Oxford-Royal College of General Practitioners Research and Surveillance Centre primary care database. They identified a group of 1 863 478 women over 18 from 465 general practices in England.  There were 5451 COVID cases within the cohort. Hormone replacement therapy was associated with a 22% reduction in all-cause mortality in COVID.

This suggests that oestrogen may well contribute a protective effect against COVID severity. This may explain why fewer women compared to men have been hospitalised, admitted to ICU, or died due to COVID during the pandemic.

“This study supports the theory that oestrogen may offer some protection against severe COVID,” said Christopher Wilcox, one of the paper’s authors. “We hope that this study can provide reassurance to patients and clinicians that there is no indication to stop hormone replacement therapy because of the pandemic.”

Source: EurekAlert!