ReutersCureVac and GSK’s second-generation vaccine candidate targeting two recent COVID-19 variants has been shown to be highly effective in preclinical studies on mice, CureVac said, as the biotech firm seeks to catch up with rivals’ development work.
Although people who recover from COVID-19 usually gain some immune defenses against reinfection, they get additional protection from vaccines, especially against severe disease, according to two studies published on March 31 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Additionally, two gold-standard trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 30 help settle questions about two controversial therapies touted by many early in the pandemic with decidedly mixed results – failure for the antiparasite drug ivermectin and success for antibody-rich blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors.
Children ages 5 to 11 who received the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were 68% less likely to be hospitalized during the Omicron wave in the United States than unvaccinated children, according to a study published on March 30.
An experimental vaccine developed by GeoVax Labs Inc. succeeded in promoting development of antibodies that target two different sites on the virus in a small pilot study and was advanced to mid-stage clinical trials, researchers reported.
COVID-19 patients who receive one of the few antibody treatments that works against the Omicron variant must be carefully monitored because after the drug is infused, the virus may mutate and become resistant to it, researchers warned after seeing such cases with Delta variant patients.
Hybrid versions of the coronavirus that combine genes from the Delta and Omicron variants – dubbed “Deltacron” – have been identified in at least 17 patients in the United States and Europe, researchers said. Additionally, new research adds to evidence that trained dogs could help screen crowds to identify people infected with the coronavirus.
An Oxford University study has found that COVID-19 can cause the brain to shrink, reduce grey matter in the regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control the sense of smell.
Patients infected with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 remain contagious for just as long as patients infected with earlier variants, according to a small study. Additionally, researchers said a drug used to treat a blood vessel condition called angioedema showed promise as a treatment for COVID-19 in lab experiments.
Medicago’s vaccine on February 24 became the world’s first plant-based shot approved against COVID-19 after Health Canada cleared Covifenz for use in adults.
On the day the public and members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee were going to get a look at Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine data for children under 5 years old, the companies pulled the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) submission.
Researchers at Bar-Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center identified an association between vitamin D deficiency and severity and mortality of COVID-19.
