Future vaccine delivery may rely on everyday items like BBQ lighters and microneedles, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University researchers.
New research from the University of Notre Dame suggests that experts from varying fields need to work together to overcome the public health crisis and that science can benefit by using marketing strategies with vaccine holdouts, much like brands do with customers.
A team of research experts from the COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN), headquartered at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has demonstrated that through robust community engagement, equitable inclusion in vaccine clinical trials can make a powerful impact in the health of underrepresented communities.
Nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as isolation, quarantines, and lockdowns, have been implemented in an effort to contain the pandemic, but these are often disruptive and costly. In Chaos, researchers identify new and sustainable interventions to contain outbreaks while minimizing the economic and social costs. They built a data-driven mobility model to simulate COVID-19 spreading in Hong Kong, by combining synthetic population, human behavior patterns, and a viral transmission model, and found that by controlling a small percentage of grids, the virus could be largely contained.
While most of the COVID-19 vaccines are designed as a two-dose regimen, some countries have prioritized vaccinating as many people as possible with a single dose before giving out an additional dose. In the journal Chaos, researchers illustrate the conditions under which a "prime first" vaccine campaign is most effective at stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The team found the vaccine waning rate to be a critically important factor in the decision.
The members of the Critical Care Societies Collaborative, which includes the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American College of Chest Physicians, American Thoracic Society, and Society of Critical Care Medicine, strongly urge individuals to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and to receive their influenza (flu) immunizations for the upcoming flu season.
People who had received a first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and received an mRNA vaccine for their second dose had a lower risk of infection compared to people who had received both doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Patients with the blood cancer multiple myeloma often mount a poor antibody response to COVID-19 vaccines. Mount Sinai researchers have now discovered that these patients also have a weak response from a different part of the immune system, known as T cells. Their discovery was published in a research letter in Cancer Cell in October.
An analytical study examined levels of vaccine efficacy and mitigation strategies. If 100 percent were vaccinated with 90 percent vaccine efficacy, testing and quarantine did not substantially reduce infections. At 75 percent efficacy, weekly testing substantially reduced the number of infections; at 50 percent, testing and quarantine markedly reduced infections. At 50 to 75 percent efficacy, testing reduced infections up to 93.6 percent. Quarantining for 10 days only modestly reduced infections until vaccine efficacy dropped to 50 percent. Findings suggest that testing and isolating positive cases may remain important mitigation strategies for universities even with 100 percent of students vaccinated.
In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a team of experts at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center compared immune responses induced by the three COVID-19 vaccines over an eight-month follow-up period.
Patients who have cardiovascular disease are at increased risk of serious complications from the flu, according to a new study by Houston Methodist physician researchers published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The study found that not only are traditional flu-related outcomes worse among some patients with CVD, but infection in those patients also is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and both CV-related mortality and mortality from all causes.
State leaders in West Virginia called upon WVU’s School of Public Health to assist with vaccination communications targeting minority communities and other key demographics.
The Bloomberg School and the Pulitzer Center are co-hosting a free online event today, Thursday, October 14, at 1 p.m., EDT, with leading public health and communications experts to discuss ways to better reach vaccine-hesitant young adults during the pandemic.
Dr. Erika Werner of Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center on why pregnant women are more vulnerable to the virus, why she recommends the vaccine, and what she hears from her patients.
Ian Cheeseman, Ph.D., and his collaborators can now sequence the genomes of individual parasites found in the blood of infected patients -- even when the infection burden is very low, which can occur during asymptomatic infections. Gaining this incredibly detailed view is expected to help develop more effective treatments, vaccines or therapies.
An engineering researcher at the University of Oklahoma is part of a National Science Foundation project addressing the logistical challenges of maintaining cryogenic temperatures for Messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, a molecule that allows human cells to recognize and protect against infectious diseases. Dimitrios Papavassiliou, Ph.D., in the Gallogly College of Engineering, is investigating Distributed Ribonucleic Acid Manufacturing – DReAM – that would create a manufacturing technique to produce mRNA sequences on demand and on-site. The research is funded by the NSF through a four-year, $2 million grant from its Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a chemical compound that interferes with a key feature of many viruses that allows the viruses to invade human cells. The compound, called MM3122, was studied in cells and mice and holds promise as a new way to prevent infection or reduce the severity of COVID-19 if given early in the course of an infection, according to the researchers.