Category: COVID-19

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COVID-19 : Oxford Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Triggers Strong Immune Responses’

A phase I/II trial of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 being developed by the University of Oxford has found that the vaccine is safe, causes few side effects, and induces strong immune responses.

The early stage results, published in The Lancet,  found that the candidate vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, provoked a T-cell response peaking 14 days after vaccination, and an antibody response within 28 days.

Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the study, and professor of paediatric infection and immunity at Oxford University, described the results as “encouraging”. He told a briefing convened by the Science Media Centre on Monday that it was “a really important milestone on the path to the development of the vaccine”.

In the Commons, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, hailed the results for taking us “one step closer to finding a vaccine that can potentially save lives, all around the world”.

The trial, which has so far involved 1077 healthy adults, caused minor side effects when compared with a control group given a meningitis vaccine. Fatigue and headache were the most commonly reported reactions.

However, there were no serious adverse events from the vaccine, the researchers said.

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COVID-19 : Hyperglycemia Predicts Death Even in Patients Without DM

Nearly half of hospitalized COVID-19 patients without a prior diabetes diagnosis have hyperglycemia, and the latter is an independent predictor of mortality at 28 days, new research indicates.  

The findings, from a retrospective analysis of 605 patients with COVID-19 seen at two hospitals in Wuhan, China, were published online July 10 in Diabetologia by Sufei Wang, of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and colleagues. 

Several previous studies have demonstrated a link between hyperglycemia and worse outcomes in COVID-19, and at least one diabetes diagnosis, but this is the first to focus specifically on that group of patients.

Wang and colleagues found that a fasting blood glucose of 7.0 mmol/L (126 mg/dL) or greater on admission — present in 45.6% of those without a prior diabetes diagnosis — was an independent predictor of 28-day mortality.

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COVID-19 : Intubation Boxes May Do More Harm Than Good

Clear aerosol boxes designed to keep COVID-19 patients’ airborne droplets from infecting healthcare workers during intubation may actually increase providers’ exposure to the virus, a small study suggests.

Joanna P. Simpson, MbChB, an intensivist in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Eastern Health in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and colleagues, tested five models of barriers used for protection while intubating simulated “patients” with COVID-19 and compared the interventions with a control of having no protection. They published their findings online Thursday in Anaesthesia.

Coauthor Peter Chan, MBBS, also an intensivist at Eastern Health, told Medscape Medical News the virus essentially concentrates inside the box and because the box has holes on the sides to allow providers’ arms in, the gaps “act as nozzles, so when a patient coughs, it creates a sudden wave of air that pushes all these particles out the path of least resistance” and into the face of the intubator.

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