By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some of the latest scientific studies on the new 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 have to invade brain tissue directly to damage it, a new study has suggested. Researchers examined the brains of 19 patients who died from COVID-19, focusing on tissues from regions that are highly sensitive to the virus: the olfactory bulb, which controls the sense of smell, and the brainstem, which controls respiration and heart rate. In 14 patients, one or both of these regions contained damaged blood vessels – some clotted and others leaking. The areas with leakage are surrounded by inflammation by the body’s immune response, they found. But the researchers saw no signs of the virus itself, they report in The New England Journal of Medicine. “We were completely amazed,” said 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 neuro-inflammatory diseases, he said. “So far, our results suggest that the damage … may not have been caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that directly infected the brain,” said Dr. Nath said. “In the future, we plan to study how COVID-19 damages the blood vessels of the brain and whether it produces some of the short- and long-term symptoms we see in patients.” (https://bit.ly/38jB7K4)
Hair Loss Rises in NYC Minority Communities During Pandemic
According to a new study, stress caused by pandemics can cause people to lose their hair. By mid-summer, the number of hairs secreting her, called telogen effluvium (TE), had risen more than 400% in a race-based environment in New York, researchers in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reported. From November 2019 to February 2020, the incidence of TE cases was 0.4%. By August, the rate had climbed to 2.3%, they found. “It is unclear whether the increase in cases of TE is more closely related to the physiological toll of infection or extreme emotional stress,” said co-author, dr. Shoshana Marmon, of Coney Island Hospital said. The increase was mainly due to TE in persons of color, especially in the Spanish community, “consistent with the excessively high mortality rate of this subgroup of the population due to COVID-19 in NYC,” the authors said. TE rates also rose in smaller non-white minorities, but not among blacks, which was also 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 also sees an increase in TE, and that the timing makes a lot of sense because the onset of shedding is usually three months after the traumatic event, “which would coincide with the outbreak of the pandemic. (https://bit.ly/2WRp7sP)
Researchers call for one dose of vaccine to increase supply
A single dose of one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, even if less effective than two doses, could have greater population benefit, three research groups argued Tuesday in three articles in Annals of Internal Medicine. In large trials, two doses of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc have both been shown to be almost 95% effective in preventing coronavirus disease. According to researchers from Yale School of Public Health, a less effective single dose can offer greater population benefits than a 95% effective vaccine that requires two doses. Researchers at the University of Washington say doubling the vaccine coverage by giving more than a single dose will speed up control of the pandemic by lowering the transmission rate. According to researchers at Stanford University, delaying the second dose in some people could enable millions of others to get a vaccine. “In a public health emergency, there is a strong argument for doing something with less than perfect results if it can help more people quickly,” said Thomas Bollyky of the Council on Foreign Relations in an editorial accompanying the articles appear. “Whether alternative approaches with current vaccines will achieve this goal, however, is far from clear.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday the idea of changing the authorized dosage or schedules of COVID-19 vaccines is premature and is not supported by available data. (https://bit.ly/2Lp0elG; https://bit.ly/3hSIyej; https://bit.ly/3olRBXK; https://bit.ly/2LsxbgY)
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(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Marilynn Larkin; Edited by Bill Berkrot)