While weekly global and U.S. confirmed cases of COVID-19 are below each of the last two years, infectious disease experts remain on guard. There are still about 1,500 people dying around the world each day, including 350 in the U.S., and the SARS-CoV-2 virus may continue to find ways to outmaneuver current treatments and vaccines.
Researchers from Emory University have discovered a novel broadly neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 antibody, 002-S21F2, being developed as a potential anti-coronavirus therapeutic.
The U.K. is launching a coordinated national program of research into the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox that has spread across Europe and North America – regions where the disease is not endemic – over the past six months. Taking a lead from the SARS-CoV-2 playbook, there will be work to sequence the viral genome and to study how it is evolving, linking this to changes in the transmission and pathology of the virus.
Three years after WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients are still reporting symptoms from long-ago infections. And the scientific community is studying the reasons for the post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). Until now, the studies provided varied reasons related to persistent COVID or PASC, such as acute SARS-CoV-2 injury in different organs, or reservoirs of the virus in certain tissues, as it happens with other pathogens like HIV. At the IDWeek 2022 infectious disease conference held this week in Washington, D.C., Eric Daar, chief of the Division of HIV Medicine at the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, moderated the session, 'COVID-19: Post-acute sequelae', where talks offered new results on the symptoms of people who have suffered prolonged COVID during the pandemic.
The U.K. is launching a coordinated national program of research into the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox that has spread across Europe and North America – regions where the disease is not endemic – over the past six months. Taking a lead from the SARS-CoV-2 playbook, there will be work to sequence the viral genome and to study how it is evolving, linking this to changes in the transmission and pathology of the virus.
Differences in individual responses to COVID-19 vaccines have been linked directly to different human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and it has been shown that people carrying one specific variant, HLA-DQB1*06, generate higher antibody responses and are better protected from SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Nanoviricides Inc. has completed its IND-enabling preclinical drug development tasks pertaining to NV-CoV-2 for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection and is working to prepare an IND application to submit to the FDA.
