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By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Coronavirus can damage the brain without infecting it
The new coronavirus does not need to directly invade brain tissue to damage it, a new study suggests. Researchers examined the brains of 19 patients who died from COVID-19, focusing on tissues in areas considered to be highly susceptible to the virus: the olfactory bulb, which controls smell, and the brainstem, which controls breathing and heart rate. In 14 patients, one or both of these areas contained damaged blood vessels – some clotted and others leaking. The areas with the leaks were surrounded by the inflammation of the body’s immune response, they found. But the researchers saw no sign of the virus itself, they report in the New England Journal of Medicine. “We were completely surprised,” co-author Dr Avindra Nath of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke said in a statement. The damage his team has seen is usually associated with strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases, he said. “So far, our results suggest that the damage … may not have been caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus directly infecting the brain,” said Dr Nath. “Going forward, we plan to study how COVID-19 harms blood vessels in the brain and whether it produces some of the short- and long-term symptoms that we see in patients. (https://bit.ly/38jB7K4)
Hair loss on the rise in minority communities in New York City during pandemic
Pandemic stress could lead to hair loss in people, according to a new study. By mid-summer, rates of a hair loss disease called telogen effluvium (TE) had risen by more than 400% in a racially diverse neighborhood in New York City, report researchers in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. From November 2019 to February 2020, the incidence of ET cases was 0.4%. In August, this rate had climbed to 2.3%, they noted. “It is not known whether the increase in ET cases is more closely related to the physiologic toll of infection or extreme emotional stress,” said co-author Dr Shoshana Marmon of Coney Island Hospital. The increase was primarily due to TE in people of color, particularly in the Hispanic community, “in line with the disproportionately high death rate of this subset of the population from COVID-19 in New York City,” reported said the authors. ET rates have also increased among small non-white minorities, but not among blacks, who have also been severely affected by COVID-19. Dr Adam Friedman of the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, who was not involved in the research, said he, too, was seeing an increase in ET “and that the timing made perfect sense. , because the onset of shedding is usually three months after the traumatic event ”, which would correspond to the rise of the pandemic. (https://bit.ly/2WRp7sP)
Researchers advocate for vaccine dose to improve supply
A single dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines currently available, even though it is less effective than two doses, could have greater benefit for the population, three research groups argued Tuesday in three articles in Annals of Internal Medicine. In large trials, the two-dose regimens of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech SE and the shot from Moderna Inc have both shown nearly 95% efficacy in preventing coronavirus disease. Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health say that a less effective single dose could provide greater benefit to the population than a 95% effective vaccine requiring two doses. According to researchers at the University of Washington, doubling immunization coverage by giving a single dose to more people would speed up control of the pandemic by lowering transmission rates. Researchers at Stanford University say that delaying second doses in some people could allow millions more to receive a vaccine. “In a public health emergency, there is a powerful argument for doing something with less than perfect results if it can help more people quickly,” Thomas Bollyky of the Council on Foreign Relations said in an op-ed published with the newspapers. “However, the question of whether alternative approaches to current vaccines would achieve this goal is far from clear.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that the idea of changing the authorized dosage or schedules of COVID-19 vaccines was premature and not supported by the available data. (https://bit.ly/2Lp0elG; https://bit.ly/3hSIyej; https://bit.ly/3olRBXK; https://bit.ly/2LsxbgY)
Open https://tmsnrt.rs/3a5EyDh in an external browser for a Reuters graphic on vaccines and treatments in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Marilynn Larkin; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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