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 Arthritis drug cuts death risk in high-risk patients
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients at high risk for becoming critically
ill and dying had significantly better outcomes if they received the
anti-inflammatory drug anakinra, researchers have found. To test the
drug, sold as Kineret by Sweden's Sobi Inc, the researchers looked
for patients with high blood levels of a protein called suPAR, which
is linked to higher odds of needing mechanical breathing assistance
and death from COVID-19. The 594-patient trial 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 for the sickest
patients in the trial, the researchers reported in Nature Medicine
https://go.nature.com/
38SadbN. "The
clinical benefit with anakinra treatment was already apparent from
day 14, and this is of clinical importance because the first 14 days
is the period during which a patient is expected to worsen. Anakinra
benefit was maintained until day 28," they said. They note that
measuring suPAR allows for a more personalized treatment approach,
but its use to guide COVID-19 treatment could be problematic because
the tests are not available in every hospital.
Heart drugs might help prevent COVID-19 blood clots
Drugs that prevent blood clots after procedures to unclog heart
arteries might also be useful for clot prevention in patients with
COVID-19, new data suggests. The coronavirus is known to affect
genes that control platelets, fragments in the blood that form
clots. The inflammatory proteins generated by the virus cause
platelets to become "hyperreactive" and form clots more easily and
more often. In test tube experiments described on Wednesday in
Science Advances https://bit.ly/3nn
EszT, researchers found
that anticoagulants used after coronary stenting - clopidogrel, sold
as Plavix by Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi, and ticagrelor, sold
as Brilinta by AstraZeneca - keep COVID-19 patients' platelets from
becoming over-activated by blocking the P2Y12 protein on their
surface. If additional studies confirm their findings, these P2Y12
inhibitors "may represent a particularly attractive therapy" for
reducing the risk of inflammation-related blood clots in COVID-19,
the authors say.
Mu variant's escape from antibodies may inform vaccine research
The ability of the Mu variant of the coronavirus to escape from
antibodies and vaccines can aid in preparations against other
emerging variants, Japanese researchers say. The variant has driven
outbreaks in Colombia and is now classified as a "variant of
interest" by the World Health Organization, although it appears
unlikely to overtake the far more prevalent Delta variant.
[to top of second column] |
 In test tube experiments,
researchers found that Mu is "highly resistant"
to antibodies in blood samples from COVID-19
survivors and from people who got the mRNA
vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. In fact, the
spike used by the virus to break into cells was
more resistant to neutralization than all other
currently recognized variants of interest and
variants of concern, the researchers reported on
Tuesday on bioRxiv
https://bit.ly/3yXq4QV ahead of peer review.
Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Clinic in La
Jolla, California, who was not involved in the
research, noted in a tweet
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/
status/1435687148246605826 on
Wednesday that Delta's high infectiousness
surpasses Mu's ability to escape from
antibodies. Nevertheless, study coauthor Kei
Sato of the University of Tokyo said
understanding how variations in spike proteins
affect the potency of neutralization antibodies
is important for developing new vaccines and
predicting breakthrough infections.
U.S. data underestimated COVID-19 nursing home
deaths U.S. government data underestimated
COVID-19 cases and nursing home deaths at the
beginning of the pandemic, a new study suggests.
A comparison of federal numbers to those tallied
by individual states, published on Thursday in
JAMA Network Open, finds that the U.S.
government missed 43.7% of COVID-19 cases and
40% of deaths in nursing homes early in the
health crisis because these figures were not
tracked until May 24, 2020. "Because of the
delay in federal reporting, roughly 68,000 cases
and 16,000 deaths in nursing homes were missed,"
said coauthor Karen Shen of Harvard University.
Those represent 11.6% of COVID-19 cases and
14.0% of COVID-19 deaths in nursing home
residents in 2020, the study estimated. "The
catastrophe of being a resident in a long-term
care facility with multiple impairments was
almost a death sentence" early in the pandemic,
said Dr. John Rowe, a professor of health policy
and aging at Columbia University's Mailman
School of Public Health who was not involved in
the research. "The finding that there were 14%
more just underlines that fact."
Click for a Reuters graphic
https://
tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl
on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks and
Linda Carroll; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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