March 2020

Biological factors that determine susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and severity of COVID-19 are yet to be fully understood. A pre-print released in medRxiv by Zhao et al suggests that the ABO blood grouping may influence acquisition of COVID-19 and severity of the disease.

Retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patient history showed that 12-22% and 23-30% of severe COVID-19 patients also had diabetes and hypertension, respectively. This and other reports suggest that hypertension and diabetes are associated with a high risk of severe COVID-19.

Andersen et al have described the genomic structure of SARS-CoV-2. Notably, the virus has a receptor binding domain consisting of 6 amino acids which not only differentiates it from SARS-CoV but also confers it with ability to bind human or human-like Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-1 (ACE2) with high affinity.

Since the SARS-CoV-2 virus started to circulate in the different countries that the COVID-19 pandemic has reached, a possible seasonal pattern in the presentation of the disease has been hypothesized. T study the seasonality of diseases, researchers normally focus on several factors...

27 MarchSheahan et al recently pre-published a paper that states that ribonucleoside analog β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC, EIDD-1931) has broad spectrum antiviral activity against SARS-CoV 2, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and related zoonotic group 2b or 2c Bat-CoV.

Lin et al., 2020 have described a hypothetical model of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis based on the immune response against SARS, MERS and influenza infection. In all cases, lymphopenia accompanied by the cytokine storm syndrome...

Mehat, P. et al recently stated that there is accumulating evidence suggests that a subgroup of patients with severe COVID-19 might have cytokine storm syndrome. Immunosuppression treatment could help severe COVID-19 patients.

Recently, published pre-print by Chen et al., 2020, suggests that M.tb infection (Latent Tuberculosis) and TB disease are also potential risk factors for COVID-19 disease and may predispose individuals to severe disease. More studies are required to confirm this, as well as to determine which other infectious diseases increase your risk of having severe COVID-19. 

We report findings of an Australian COVID-19 Case study of a 47 year womanThevarajan et al., aimed to determine the “kinetics and breadth of immune responses associated with clinical resolution of COVID-19.” Specifically, the conducted immune-profiling of blood samples at day 7-9 post symptoms, and day 20 (recovered).

This article we shall focus on Fungal immunology talks presented by Dr J. Claire Hoving (University of Cape Town). Dr Hoving’s first talk focused on “The Epidemiology of fungal infections”, she highlighted that although fungal infections cause more than 1.5 million deaths annually, the impact on human health is not....