Sugarcane molecules can be a way to prevent COVID; increasingly younger patients

August 20 (Reuters): Here is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that justifies a subsequent study to corroborate the findings and has not yet been certified by the peer review.

The “gates” of sugar molecules help infect coronavirus cells

According to a study published in Nature Chemistry on Thursday, researchers have discovered a sugary residue at the tip of the new coronavirus that helps it break into cells and infect them. The molecules that make up the sugar coating, called glycans, act as “gates” that open to let the spinal receptor binding domain bind to a cell. Without this gateway, the receptor-binding domain cannot take the shape needed to enter the cell, said Rommie Amaro of the University of California at San Diego, who co-authored the study, in a statement. of press. The researchers said that if drugs could be developed that would “close” closed glycane doors, the virus would be prevented from entering and infecting cells.

Patients with COVID-19 were younger in early 2021 and late 2020

The average inpatient COVID-19 was younger last spring than last winter, researchers from a large Pennsylvania health system found. They analyzed data from about 39,000 COVID-19 patients, including 7,774 who were hospitalized. People who tested positive in March and April 2021, when the Alpha variant of the coronavirus was circulating, were younger and less likely to die compared to those diagnosed between November 2020 and January 2021. Among younger patients 50-year-olds who tested positive in the spring were three times more likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to require ICU admission or mechanical ventilation than those diagnosed in the winter before Alpha circulated widely, according to a report posted Wednesday on medRxiv before the peer review. “The widespread availability of highly effective vaccines is promising,” they said, “but infections and deaths from disease continue … This dynamic is especially worrying in light of the continued emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 “.

Problems on the part of the United States do not get worse during the pandemic

Problematic births did not increase in the United States during the pandemic, researchers found in a study of about 838,500 women, including more than 225,000 who gave birth during the pandemic. The rates of premature birth, maternal blood pressure problems, stillbirth, low birth weight, placental problems, cesarean delivery, or uncontrolled postpartum bleeding were not differentiated when comparing the period March to December 2020. with the pre-pandemic years of From 2017 to 2019, the research team reported to Obstetrics and Gynecology. About half of the women had been tested for coronavirus during pregnancy and about 7% of them had tested positive. There were no differences in birth outcomes between these groups. The authors were unable to distinguish between asymptomatic and symptomatic coronavirus infections, or the severity of the disease, which could have variable effects on pregnancy outcomes, or whether the previous or subsequent infection of the pregnancy marked the difference. They only examined the results of labor and delivery, not the problems that could have occurred before pregnancy.

There are more data on nursing homes that point to vaccine issues

Doctors who vaccinated 120 nursing home residents against COVID-19 with the Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA vaccine found protective antibodies in only 28% of residents six months later, compared with 84% of residents immediately after complete vaccination. The research, published in medRxiv prior to the peer review, adds to evidence that vaccine protection decreases over time. Vaccinated health workers had higher levels of antibodies than residents, which is not surprising because they were younger and healthier, but they also experienced “significant decreases” in protection over time, the researchers reported. Given the “rapid decrease in antibodies” and “the rapid spread of the Delta variant and reports of vaccine progress,” they concluded that booster doses are likely to be needed. On Wednesday, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would “begin efforts to offer reinforcement shots directly to long-term care center residents,” beginning in September.

Click for a Reuters chart on developing vaccines.

Nancy Lapid Reports; Edited by Tiffany Wu

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