EurekAlert! COVID-19 Online Newsroom - Latest News Releases

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 14-Jun-2024 12:09 ET (14-Jun-2024 16:09 GMT/UTC)

Large and unequal life expectancy declines in India during COVID-19

University of Oxford
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new paper published in Science Advances today finds that life expectancy in India was 2.6 years lower in 2020 than 2019, with women and marginalised social groups suffering the greatest declines.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: Leverhulme Trust

Mutations of the spike gene do not predict the severity of variants of SARS-CoV-2

University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from UNC Charlotte’s Center for Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks (CIPHER) has found that the two recent and prevalent strains of the virus that cause COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 variants BA.2.86 and JN.1, are not significantly better than their predecessor Omicron at evading immune responses and causing infections despite having a high number of mutations compared to Omicron.

Journal: Frontiers in Virology

Study identifies unpredicted immune responses to adenoviral COVID vaccines

University of Liverpool
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Drug Safety Science have identified unpredicted T-cell immune responses to the adenoviral (Oxford/AstraZeneca and Janssen) COVID-19 vaccines, but not to the mRNA vaccines.

Journal: npj Vaccines

Scientists pinpoint new drug target for RSV

Trinity College Dublin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Irish scientists led by a group from Trinity College Dublin have discovered how the dangerous Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) defuses our immune response and, in doing so, they have pinpointed an exciting new target for drug developers.

Journal: Frontiers in Immunology
Funder: Irish Research Council, Chinese Scholarship Council, National Children’s Hospital Tallaght

Study shows promise for a universal influenza vaccine

Oregon Health & Science University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research led by Oregon Health & Science University reveals a promising approach to developing a universal influenza vaccine — a so-called “one and done” vaccine that confers lifetime immunity against an evolving virus. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, tested an OHSU-developed vaccine platform against the virus considered most likely to trigger the next pandemic.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/National Institutes of Health

Prenatal Zika infection has long-term immune consequences in children, even without microcephaly

Cleveland Clinic
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A Cleveland Clinic-led study published in eBioMedicine reveals that maternal Zika virus infections can reprogram fetal immune development, leading to long-term consequences in children’s immunity. These changes even occur in children born without the physical characteristics associated with congenital Zika syndrome — suggesting that the 95% of babies born of Zika-infected pregnancies who did not exhibit symptoms may have been affected by the virus with long-term immunological repercussion.

Journal: EBioMedicine

Rensselaer researcher draws insights from COVID-19 to inform improved health care in times of crisis

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Among the many challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented, disruptions in health care were among the most impactful. The pandemic was large-scale, lasted over two years, and resulted in millions of hospitalizations and 1.2 million deaths in the United States alone. Meanwhile, routine medical services were affected by the pandemic: Patients avoided health care visits for fear of contracting the virus; stay-at-home policies left patients without routine care; and there was a limited supply of services.

Journal: Nature Medicine

In China, property rights take wrong turn

University of Texas at Austin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

China’s economy, long an engine of world growth, has been sputtering lately. During the second quarter of 2024, it grew at an annual rate of 4.7% — down from an average 7% a year during the past decade. For the next two years, the International Monetary Fund forecasts more of the same.

Analysts have blamed China’s slowdown on short-term factors, such as debt-ridden real estate and a delayed recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. But new research from Texas McCombs suggests a longer-term problem: an erosion of private property rights.

The study by Kishore Gawande, chair of the Department of Business, Government & Society, looks at what happened after China granted nationwide protection to private property rights in 2007. It finds that the law turbocharged China’s business climate.

Journal: Journal of Law and Economics

New ECDC Director Pamela Rendi-Wagner emphasises importance of restoring and reinforcing public trust in science after pandemic, in editorial for Eurosurveillance

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Reports and Proceedings

In an editorial for the scientific journal Eurosurveillance, the incoming ECDC Director Dr Pamela Rendi Wagner outlined her vision for the European Union’s public health agency, highlighting the mounting challenges to public health after the COVID-19 pandemic, including war in Europe, climate change, and increasing social inequalities. She also emphasised the importance of reinforcing and restoring public trust in science.

Journal: Eurosurveillance

Subretinal AAV T-cell Inhibition

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study shows that subretinal adeno-associated virus 8 (AAV8) injections cause proinflammatory T-cell immune response against the transgene product. According to the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy, co-injection of immunodominant peptides from the transgene product, along with AAV8, modulates the immune response at all AAV doses tested.

Journal: Human Gene Therapy

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic and neonatal mortality in the US

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this population-level study of National Center for Health Statistics databases, neonatal, early neonatal, and infant mortality rates did not increase during the initial COVID-19 pandemic period. However, associations were observed between the pandemic period social distancing measures and higher rates of neonatal and early neonatal mortality, as well as preterm birth rate with a lag period, suggesting the importance of monitoring infant health outcomes following pandemic-related population behavior changes.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Learning from the COVID pandemic: On the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against pathogens

German Center for Infection Research
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of government-ordered measures to contain the pandemic, such as regular testing and the wearing of medical masks, was repeatedly called into question. Through a large-scale analysis of viral genome data, a working group led by DZIF researcher Prof. Alice McHardy at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) has now discovered that significantly fewer new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus entered Germany in connection with the introduction of certain measures such as the wearing of medical masks and free access to rapid antigen tests.

Journal: Nature Communications

Research on human-centered indoor climate for health centers

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Business Announcement

The European scientific project HumanIC, in which Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is participating, aims to create a new approach to the environmental design of hospitals through the concept of human-centered indoor climate. Instead of the traditional approach of focusing solely on the building and its ventilation and heating systems, this network will develop new approaches to integrate the multi-dynamic interaction between pollution sources and airflow distribution systems with the clinical, patient and energy needs of the hospital environment.

Funder: Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions

No increased risk of birth defects after covid-19 infection or vaccination in early pregnancy

BMJ Group
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Neither covid-19 infection nor vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with increased risk of major birth defects, finds a study from Scandinavia published by The BMJ today.

Journal: The BMJ
Funder: Research Council of Norway and NordForsk

Improving HIV treatment in children and adolescents – the right way

University of Basel
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Globally, around 2.6 million children and adolescents are currently living with HIV, the majority of them in Africa. These young people are much more likely to experience treatment failure than adults. Experts long assumed that testing for viral drug resistance could improve treatment in cases where treatment has failed. However, a research team led by the University of Basel, Switzerland, now shows that it is much more important to support patients in taking their medication regularly.

Journal: The Lancet Global Health

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