Arthritis medication Sobi reduces risk of death; heart medications can help prevent blood clots from COVID-19

September 10 (Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the results and that has not yet been certified by peer review.

Arthritis drug reduces risk of death in high-risk patients

COVID-19 hospital patients at high risk of becoming seriously ill and dying had significantly better outcomes if they were given the anti-inflammatory drug anakinra, researchers found. To test the drug, sold as Kineret by the Swedish company Sobi Inc (SOBIV.ST), the researchers looked for patients with high blood levels of a protein called suPAR, which is linked to a higher likelihood of ” need mechanical breathing assistance and die from COVID-19. The trial of 594 patients tested anakinra, which blocks the effects of inflammatory proteins IL-1-alpha and IL-1-beta, against a placebo. The risk of death was 55% lower in patients who received anakinra and 80% lower in the sickest patients in the trial, the researchers reported in Nature Medicine. “The clinical benefit of treatment with anakinra was already apparent from the 14th day, and this is of clinical importance because the first 14 days is the period during which a patient is expected to get worse. The benefit of Anakinra was maintained until day 28, “they said. They note that measuring suPAR allows for a more personalized approach to treatment, but its use to guide COVID-19 treatment could be problematic as tests are not available in all hospitals.

Heart Medication May Help Prevent COVID-19 Blood Clots

Drugs that prevent blood clots after heart artery clearing procedures may also be helpful in preventing clots in patients with COVID-19, new data suggests. The coronavirus is known to affect the genes that control platelets, fragments in the blood that form clots. The inflammatory proteins generated by the virus cause platelets to become “over-reactive” and clot more easily and often. In test-tube experiments described in Science Advances on Wednesday, researchers found that the blood thinners used after coronary stent placement – clopidogrel, sold as Plavix by Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY.N) and Sanofi (SASY .PA), and ticagrelor, sold as Brilinta by AstraZeneca (AZN.L) – prevent platelets in COVID-19 patients from becoming overactivated by blocking the P2Y12 protein on their surface. If additional studies confirm their findings, these P2Y12 inhibitors “could represent a particularly interesting therapy” for reducing the risk of inflammation-related blood clots in COVID-19, according to the authors.

Escape of Mu variant antibodies could inform vaccine research

The ability of the Mu variant of the coronavirus to escape antibodies and vaccines may help prepare against other emerging variants, according to Japanese researchers. The variant has caused epidemics in Colombia and is now classified as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization, although it seems unlikely to overtake the much more widespread Delta variant. In test-tube experiments, researchers found that Mu is “very resistant” to antibodies in blood samples from COVID-19 survivors and people who have received the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer (PFE.N) and BioNTech. In fact, the spike used by the virus to enter cells was more resistant to neutralization than all other currently recognized variants of interest and variants of concern, the bioRxiv researchers reported on Tuesday ahead of the peer review. Dr Eric Topol of the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif., Who was not involved in the research, noted in a Tweeter Wednesday that Delta’s high contagiousness exceeds Mu’s ability to evade antibodies. Nonetheless, study co-author Kei Sato from the University of Tokyo said that understanding how variations in spike proteins affect the potency of neutralizing antibodies is important for developing new vaccines and predicting breakthrough infections.

US data underestimated COVID-19 nursing home deaths US government data underestimated COVID-19 cases and nursing home deaths early in pandemic, new study suggests . A comparison of federal figures with those tallied by individual states, published Thursday in the JAMA Network Open, reveals that the US government missed 43.7% of COVID-19 cases and 40% of nursing home deaths at the start of the health crisis because these figures were not tracked until May 24, 2020. “Due to the delay in federal reporting, approximately 68,000 cases and 16,000 nursing home deaths were missed,” the co- said author Karen Shen of Harvard University. These account for 11.6% of COVID-19 cases and 14.0% of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents in 2020, the study estimated. “The catastrophe of being a resident of a long-term care facility with multiple disabilities was almost a death sentence” at the start of the pandemic, said Dr John Rowe, professor of health and aging policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. did not participate in the search. “The discovery that there was 14% more only underscores this fact.”

Click for a Reuters graphic on vaccines in development.

Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks and Linda Carroll; Editing by Bill Berkrot

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