|
 Severe COVID-19 may "trip off" immune self-attacks
Severe COVID-19 may trick the immune system into producing so-called
autoantibodies that have the potential to eventually attack healthy
tissue and cause inflammatory diseases, researchers warned in a
paper published in Nature Communications. They found autoantibodies
in blood samples from roughly 50% of 147 COVID-19 patients they
studied, but in fewer than 15% of 41 healthy volunteers. For 48
COVID-19 patients, the researchers had blood samples taken over
different days, including the day of hospital admission, allowing
them to track the development of the autoantibodies. "Within a
week... about 20% of these patients had developed new antibodies to
their own tissues that weren't there the day they were admitted,"
study leader Dr. Paul Utz of Stanford University said in a news
release. He urged people to get vaccinated. "You can't know in
advance that when you get COVID-19 it will be a mild case," he said.
"If you do get a bad case, you could be setting yourself up for a
lifetime of trouble because the virus may trip off autoimmunity," he
said. "We haven't studied any patients long enough to know whether
these autoantibodies are still there a year or two later," he added,
but noted that developing an autoimmue disease was a possibility.
New variants may spread more efficiently into air
The virus that causes COVID-19 may be getting better at traveling
into the air, a new study suggests. Researchers found that patients
infected with the Alpha variant of the virus - the dominant strain
circulating when the study was conducted - put 43 to 100 times more
virus into the air than people infected with the original version of
the coronavirus. Some of this was due to the fact that patients
infected with Alpha had increased amounts of virus in nasal swabs
and saliva.
But the amount of virus being exhaled was 18-times more
than could be explained by the higher viral loads, according to a
report published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The researchers
also found that loose-fitting face coverings worn by patients with
mild COVID-19 can reduce the amount of virus-laden particles in the
surrounding air around by about 50%. "We know that the Delta variant
circulating now is even more contagious than the Alpha variant,"
coauthor Don Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public
Health said in a statement. "Our research indicates that the
variants just keep getting better at traveling through the air, so
we must provide better ventilation and wear tight-fitting masks, in
addition to vaccination, to help stop spread of the virus."
[to top of second column] |
 Most cancer patients respond
well to COVID-19 vaccines
People with cancer have appropriate, protective
immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines without
experiencing any more side effects than the
general population, five separate research teams
reported at the European oncology meeting this
week. In one study involving 44,000 recipients
of the two-dose Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine,
researchers found no difference in side effects
experienced by the nearly 4,000 participants
with past or current cancer. In a separate,
researchers studied 791 cancer patients who
received the two-dose vaccine from Moderna.
 At
28 days after administration of the second dose,
adequate levels of antibodies to the virus in
the blood were found in 84% of patients with
cancer who were receiving chemotherapy, in 89%
of patients receiving chemotherapy plus an
immunotherapy drug, and in 93% of patients on
immunotherapy alone. These results compare
favorably with the antibody responses seen in a
separate group of individuals without cancer,
according to European Society for Medical
Oncology (ESMO) Press Officer Dr. Antonio
Passaro. "The high rates of efficacy of the
vaccine observed across the trial population,
regardless of the type of anticancer treatment,
constitute a strong and reassuring message for
patients and their doctors," he said in a
statement.
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl
on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill
Berkrot)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content |
