Did you watch the IUIS Webinar on The Global Scientific Response to COVID-19 by Giuseppe Ippolito (Scientific Director at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, Italy)."Giuseppe Ippolito shares his opinion on why policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic must be based on scientific evidence – and why policymakers must invest in science to be prepared for future infectious diseases."
April 2020
Can two FDA-approved drugs be re-purposed to clear SARS-CoV-2 infection?
Scientists in Japan found that the combination of FDA-approved drugs, Nelfinavir (a protease inhibitor) and Cepharanthine (an anti-inflammatory) showed a synergistic inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro. Additional studies have suggested that Cepharanthine targets both SARS-CoV-2 entry and viral replication.
Should we consider SARS-CoV-2 human challenge models for vaccine testing ?
A recent article by Eyal and colleagues suggest using “Human Challenge Studies to Accelerate Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Vaccine Licensure”. “The proposed trial method would potentially cut the wait time for the rollout of an efficacious vaccine. Challenge studies generally require fewer participants...
Mask wearing to reduce the spread of COVID-19
On 28 February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the global risk of the spread of COVID-19 to very high.Dr Leung and colleagues Dr Lam and Dr Cheng discuss the benefits to infection control that face masks can bring. Health authorities worldwide have advised that face masks are somewhat effective in limiting spread...
Development of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines
In this pre-peer reviewed article, the authors report on the development of a purified inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate which they show induces virus-specific moderately broadly neutralizing antibodies in mice, rats and non-human primates. A SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, isolated from a COVID-19 patient...
Cytokine Release Syndrome & COVID-19
A recent perspective in Science asked whether there are lessons that can be learned from arthritis and cell therapy in cancer for COVID-19. Severe disease in 20% of COVID-19 cases appear to be from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which is often fatal. This poignant piece outlines the pathways leading to cytokine release syndrome (CRS)...
COVID-19 Antibody Immunology Video
Webinar by Prof. Danny Altmann from Imperial College London reviews new and exciting studies on COVID-19 antibody immunology and emerging data from all around the world. We have written articles that discuss the importance of Abs in diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, as well as detection of SARS-Cov-2 nAbs in cats.
Uncertainty is hampering doctors’ ability to treat COVID-19
There is a great deal of uncertainty prevailing across the globe over the current COVID-19 pandemic, and clinicians and scientists are working hard to find a cure to treat this disease (Read Solidarity Trial). However, doubt about whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself or the patient’s immune system inundates the patient’s organs...
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 nAbs in cats
Zhang et al, investigated the infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cats by detecting specific serum Abs. A cohort of serum samples were collected from cats in Wuhan, including 102 sampled after COVID-19 outbreak, and 39 prior to the outbreak. 14.7% of cat sera collected after the outbreak were positive for the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 by ELISA.
Susceptibility of domestic animals to SARS-Cov-2
Although SARS-CoV-2 shares 96.2% identity with the coronavirus RaTG13, which was detected in horseshoe bats in Yunnan province (1), it has not previously been detected in humans or other animals. Could the widely disseminated viruses transmit to other animal species, which then become reservoirs of infection?