Tag Archives: Vaccine

Genes may add to ethnic COVID-19 disparities; sickest patients unwell a year later

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – Here is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Genes may explain some ethnic differences in COVID-19 impact

The varying impacts of COVID-19 among ethnic groups might be partially due to genetic differences in the cell-surface protein the virus uses as a gateway, an international research team found. They analyzed genetic information from more than 85,000 volunteers, including 6,274 who were tested for the new coronavirus and 1,837 who tested positive. In the gene for ACE2 – the “receptor” protein through which the virus breaks into cells – they found rare variants that would alter the part of the protein to which the virus attaches itself. These variant genes “appear to vary in frequency between different ethnic groups,” said Jamal Nasir of the University of Northampton in the UK. Two were more common in Europeans than in East Asians, for example. Nasir and colleagues also found variants that appear to increase or decrease an individual’s ACE2 protein levels, which could affect vulnerability to infection, or severity. People who were not infected with the coronavirus were more likely to have a variant that decreases ACE2 levels, according to a report posted on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The next steps, Nasir said, are to confirm the findings by exposing human cells to the virus in lab experiments and to identify small molecules that can be used as drugs to block harmful genetic mutations’ effects.

Severe COVID-19 still affects patients a year later

Among 1,276 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in China early in the pandemic, 49% still had at least one symptom 12 months after first becoming ill, researchers reported on Friday in The Lancet. Most common were fatigue or muscle weakness. About a third still had shortness of breath or other lung problems, especially those who had been the most severely ill. In some patients, doctors saw a reduced flow of oxygen from the lungs to the bloodstream. Roughly one in four survivors reported depression. Among patients who had been employed before they were hospitalized, 88% had returned to work by 12 months – but overall, the survivors were not as healthy as people from the community who had not been infected with the coronavirus. The study only looked at patients from one hospital, and not many of them had been sick enough to require intensive care. Nevertheless, the fact that some patients still had symptoms “should be taken into account when planning delivery of healthcare services post-pandemic,” coauthor Bin Cao from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital said in a statement.

Pfizer vaccine safe in small study of very sick kids

In adolescents with serious neurological conditions, the side effects of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are likely to be mild to moderate and clear up quickly, a small study suggests. The 27 children in the study, ages 12 to 15, had muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, or other neurological diseases, plus other conditions such as heart defects and immune deficiency – all of which put them at very high risk for severe COVID-19. They would not have been included in the main trials of the vaccine because they were too sick, the researchers said. Eleven children had averse events after the first or second dose, such as mild rash, fever, headache, gastrointestinal upset, difficulty sleeping, and low blood sugar. Most problems resolved within 72 hours, and the rest cleared up within a week, according to a report published on Thursday in Archives of Disease in Childhood. Although the study involved only a few children, “these data are especially important as they are representative of the children who are most likely to benefit from vaccination, and parents and clinicians may have concerns regarding an increased risk of unexpected events,” the authors said.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic program plans to ship 100 million doses of Sinovac and Sinopharm COVID-19 shots by the end of next month, mostly to Africa and Asia, in its first delivery of Chinese vaccines, a WHO document showed.

EUROPE

* Britain’s Health Department said it has not made any decision on COVID-19 vaccines for 12 to 15-year-olds after the Telegraph reported the National Health Service planned vaccinations from the first week children return to school in September.

* The British public’s view of the government’s management of the coronavirus crisis has turned negative for the first time since February and they are worried about the risk of a new wave of infections, according to a survey.

* Hundreds of Greek frontline health workers protested against a plan to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for the care sector as infection rates remained high.

* Students and teachers who have not been inoculated against COVID-19 or recovered from the disease will have to take weekly tests, as infections in the country rose to their highest since May.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Vilified by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party for its high COVID-19 cases, Kerala’s apparent poor record may actually hold crucial lessons for the country in containing the outbreak as authorities brace for a possible third wave of infections.

* Vietnam will deploy troops to industrial Binh Duong province, a major manufacturing hub in the Southeast Asian country, to help contain an expected 50,000 additional coronavirus infections there over the next two weeks, the government said.

* Thailand is in talks with European countries to purchase millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

AMERICAS

* Illinois will require all eligible students and school employees to be vaccinated and re-instituted an indoor mask mandate under an order announced by Governor J.B. Pritzker.

* Public support for stronger measures to require COVID vaccinations is strong, according to a new Reuters/IPSOS poll, but for Detroit automakers the debate over vaccination policy is far from over.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* A third wave of COVID-19 infections in Africa has stabilized and the continent’s slow vaccination drive has picked up pace, the WHO said.

* Qatar is offering COVID-19 vaccines to evacuees from Afghanistan who are temporarily staying in the Gulf Arab state, which has been facilitating global evacuation efforts since the Taliban seized Kabul.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said it would start a large study for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the next few weeks, after the drugmaker received authorization from Brazil’s regulatory agency.

* Pfizer Inc and BioNTech signed on Brazil’s Eurofarma Laboratorios as a manufacturer of their COVID-19 vaccine doses for Latin America.

* Pfizer said a booster dose of its two-shot COVID-19 vaccine spurs a more than threefold increase in antibodies against the coronavirus, as the company seeks U.S. regulatory approval for a third injection.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global equity markets slipped while U.S. Treasury yields rose to two-week highs on Thursday after two hawkish Federal Reserve officials called for the U.S. central bank to start ending its bond-buying program ahead of a key speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Krishna Chandra Eluri; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Arun Koyyur)

U.S. to begin offering COVID-19 vaccine booster shots in September

By Carl O’Donnell and Ahmed Aboulenein

(Reuters) -The U.S. government said on Wednesday it plans to make COVID-19 vaccine booster shots widely available starting on Sept. 20 as infections rise from the coronavirus Delta variant, citing data indicating diminishing protection from the vaccines over time.

U.S. officials are prepared to offer a third shot to Americans who completed their initial inoculation in two-dose COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna Inc and by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech AG at least eight months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Initial booster doses will be given to Americans who received the two-dose vaccines, but U.S. health officials said they anticipate that people who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, the other COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States, will also need boosters. The United States did not begin administering J&J shots until March.

The booster shots initially will focus upon healthcare workers, nursing home residents and older people, among the first groups to be vaccinated in late 2020 and early 2021, top U.S. health officials said in a joint statement.

There is mounting evidence that protection from the vaccines wanes after six or more months, particularly in older people with underlying health conditions. The officials cited this in their decision on boosters, but stressed that the U.S.-approved shots have proven “remarkably effective” in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths.

The officials included President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci as well as the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health.

“The available data make very clear that protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection begins to decrease over time … and in association with the dominance of the Delta variant, we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” the officials said.

“We conclude that a booster shot will be needed to maximize vaccine-induced protection and prolong its durability,” they added.

U.S. officials previously authorized a third dose of the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna for people with weak immune systems.

In recent weeks, several other countries also have decided to offer booster shots to older adults as well as people with weak immune systems, including Israel, France and Germany.

DELTA VARIANT CONCERNS

Vaccinations have been widely available in the United States, unlike many other countries, but the highly infectious Delta variant has caused what experts describe as a pandemic of the unvaccinated as a significant number of people choose not to get inoculated.

The United States leads the world in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths. Daily U.S. cases soared from fewer than 10,000 in early July to more than 150,000 in August as the Delta variant took hold. The new cases include some vaccinated people, though they are far less likely to experience severe disease or death than the unvaccinated.

According to CDC data, more than 72% of Americans 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose and nearly 62% are fully vaccinated. Of the total population, the CDC said 59.9% have received at least one dose and 50.9% are fully vaccinated.

More than a million Americans independently sought an extra vaccine dose before the official decision on boosters was announced, according to federal data.

A study by an Israeli healthcare provider released on Wednesday found that a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot is 86% effective in people over age 60.

It followed another Israeli study released this week that showed evidence of waning immunity from COVID-19 vaccines in the months after inoculation, raising the risk of serious infection among the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

“The surprise factor is the vaccine vulnerability – people who are vaccinated became vulnerable much earlier than expected,” Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, said about the study.

“The whole dynamic of boosters is being rewritten,” Topol added.

The U.S. announcement goes against guidance from the World Health Organization, whose chief scientist said on Wednesday current data does not indicate the need for booster shots. A WHO adviser said vaccine doses should first go to people in poorer countries who have not yet received an initial inoculation.

The decision represented a shift from the optimism of U.S. health authorities in May in curbing the pandemic when Biden set a goal to vaccinate 70% of American adults with at least one dose by July 4. That goal was achieved about a month late.

The U.S. booster plan is dependent on the FDA determining that a third dose of the two-dose vaccines is safe and effective, and a favorable recommendation from CDC advisers.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

Factbox-Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – The Tokyo Paralympics will take place generally without spectators, organizers said, as the government was set to prolong COVID-19 emergency measures in the capital and other regions that will run through the Games.

EUROPE

* The European Guarantee Fund, which is managed by the Investment Bank Group, secured European Union approval to provide guarantees on synthetic securitization tranches to help companies in 22 EU countries affected by the pandemic.

* Poland will send 650,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Ukraine, the minister in charge of the Polish vaccination drive told state news agency PAP.

* North Macedonia has reimposed restrictions on access to cafes, restaurants and public events in a bid to subdue a fresh spike in infections and nudge citizens to get vaccinated, prompting public anger and protests.

* All 16- and 17-year-olds in England will be offered their first vaccine dose by Aug. 23, according to a target set by British Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Thailand, a regional manufacturer of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus shots, is seeking to borrow 150,000 doses of the same vaccine from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, an official said, amid a Thai supply shortage.

* Indonesia extended its curbs though relaxed some measures in eight unspecified areas on the most populous islands of Java and Bali, as fewer infections have been reported in cities.

* Hong Kong’s government said it would upgrade 15 overseas places including the United States, Spain and France to “high risk” from “medium risk” by Aug. 20, meaning international arrivals from those countries will face lengthened quarantine due to a resurgence of the coronavirus.

* Taiwan has rejected an application for the emergency use of UBI Pharma’s vaccine candidate, the government said.

AMERICAS

* As the Delta variant of the virus sweeps through Mexico’s cities, more adults in their 30s and 40s are ending up in the hospital with polls showing vaccine hesitancy is rising in younger age groups.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Turkey is allowing people who were inoculated with Sinovac’s coronavirus vaccine to take an additional Pfizer dose as it looks to ease travel to countries that have not approved the Chinese shot, the health ministry said.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Europe’s drugs regulator said it was evaluating the use of Roche’s arthritis drug, Actemra, in hospitalized adults with severe COVID-19, its latest review of a potential coronavirus treatment.

* The UK’s health regulator said coronavirus vaccines did not raise the risk of miscarriage, and that it had not found any link between the shots and changes to menstrual periods.

* GlaxoSmithKline and CureVac said a study on macaque monkeys showed their jointly-developed vaccine candidate to be “strongly improved” in protecting against the virus compared with CureVac’s first attempt.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* A surprisingly sharp slowdown in Chinese economic activity and a rapid Taliban takeover in Afghanistan helped drive global shares lower Monday.

* The initial success of Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout that enabled an opening of the economy bolstered growth in the second quarter, official figures showed.

* Thailand’s economy unexpectedly grew in the second quarter from the first helped by exports and government spending, but spiking cases continue to batter domestic activity and tourism, restraining its fragile recovery.

(Compiled by Veronica Snoj and Federico Maccioni; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta)

WHO’s pandemic project faces cash crunch amid vaccine, oxygen shortages

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking $11.5 billion in urgent funding to fight the more infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus, a draft report seen by Reuters shows, amid worries wealthy nations are partly bypassing its COVID-19 programs.

A large portion of the cash being requested from the WHO’s partners is needed to buy tests, oxygen and face masks in poorer nations, says the document which is expected to be released this week. And a quarter of it would be to buy hundreds of millions of vaccines for them that would otherwise go elsewhere.

The paper, still subject to changes, outlines the results and financial needs of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), the program co-led by the WHO to distribute fairly COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests across the world.

The program, set up at the start of the pandemic, remains vastly underfunded, and its coordinators are now acknowledging it will remain so as many governments look to address global COVID needs “differently,” an ACT-A official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As a result, it has cut by nearly $5 billion its total request for funds, the document shows. But it still needs $16.8 billion, almost as much as what has been raised so far, and $7.7 billion is required urgently.

The document also calls for a further $3.8 billion, on top of the $7.7 billion, to take up options for 760 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that would be delivered next year.

“These options to buy need to be exercised in the coming months or vaccine doses will be lost,” the document warns.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week said that $7.7 billion were urgently needed, but did not give a breakdown of planned spending, and did not say how much extra money was needed for vaccines.

The WHO was not immediately available to comment.

The latest cash crunch will underscore concerns about the long-term future of the program, which has struggled to secure supplies and equipment to tame a pandemic that has killed more than 4.2 million.

The vaccine portion of the project, called COVAX, is increasingly reliant on donations from wealthy nations, rather than its own supplies, after key manufacturer India restricted exports of shots to boost domestic vaccinations.

But the United States, European Union and Japan have also donated vaccines directly to countries as part of their vaccine diplomacy drives. Japan has also said it’s a quicker process than going through COVAX.

Some countries have provided equipment directly to others too. Last month, Australia said it would donate oxygen-related equipment, antigen test-kits as well as vaccines to Indonesia.

The plea for cash comes as a review of the ACT-A gets under way, with France, Germany and Canada among the countries steering the process. A report on the program’s results and shortcomings is expected in September by consultancy Dalberg Global Development Advisors, the ACT-A official said.

OXYGEN NEEDS

Among ACT-A’s immediate needs are $1.2 billion for oxygen to treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients in poorer countries where supplies are low, the report says.

Oxygen has moved up the priority list given vaccines are not available, the ACT-A official said, highlighting the repercussions from the shortage of shots as the Delta variant spreads to 132 countries.

COVAX has delivered about 180 million vaccines, far short of its 2 billion target by the end of this year.

Oxygen is needed to “control the exponential death surges caused by the Delta variant,” the document says.

Global demand for medical oxygen is currently more than a dozen times greater than before the pandemic, the document says, but many countries are struggling to access sufficient supplies.

The urgent need for the most basic treatment against COVID-19 one and a half years into the pandemic shows how little has been done to combat the virus in most of the world, the ACT-A official said, noting: “There hasn’t been much progress. What was urgent three months ago is still urgent now.”

“Inequity in access to life-saving COVID-19 tools has never been more apparent,” the document says.

In rich nations, most people have already been vaccinated, including the younger who are less at risk from COVID-19, whereas in poorer nations the most vulnerable are still waiting for a first dose and there is a lack of basic materials, such as face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

“Avoidable death and unsustainable pressure on health systems is mounting in many countries due to insufficient access to oxygen and PPE,” the document says.

At least $1.7 billion are urgently needed to buy protective devices for healthcare workers in poorer nations, the document says, and another $2.4 billion are needed to boost testing in low-income countries.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Potter)

Britain’s COVID-19 cases up by nearly 41% over past week

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has reported 46,558 new cases of COVID-19, government data showed on Tuesday, meaning the rise in cases between July 14 and July 20 stood at 40.7% compared with the previous seven days.

A further 96 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for COVID-19.

A total of 46.35 million people had received a first dose of a vaccine against coronavirus by July 19 and 36.24 million people had received a second dose.

(Writing by William Schomberg)

Living with COVID-19: Israel changes strategy as Delta variant hits

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Four weeks ago, Israel was celebrating a return to normal life in its battle with COVID-19.

After a rapid vaccination drive that had driven down coronavirus infections and deaths, Israelis had stopped wearing face masks and abandoned all social-distancing rules.

Then came the more infectious Delta variant, and a surge in cases that has forced Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to reimpose some COVID-19 restrictions and rethink strategy.

Under what he calls a policy of “soft suppression,” the government wants Israelis to learn to live with the virus – involving the fewest possible restrictions and avoiding a fourth national lockdown that could do further harm to the economy.

As most Israelis in risk groups have now been vaccinated against COVID-19, Bennett is counting on fewer people than before falling seriously ill when infections rise.

“Implementing the strategy will entail taking certain risks but in the overall consideration, including economic factors, this is the necessary balance,” Bennett said last week.

The main indicator guiding the move is the number of severe COVID-19 cases in hospital, currently around 45. Implementation will entail monitoring infections, encouraging vaccinations, rapid testing and information campaigns about face masks.

The strategy has drawn comparisons with the British government’s plans to reopen England’s economy from lockdown, though Israel is in the process of reinstating some curbs while London is lifting restrictions.

The curbs that have been reinstated include the mandatory wearing of face masks indoors and quarantine for all people arriving in Israel.

Bennett’s strategy, like that of the British government, has been questioned by some scientists.

Israel’s Health Ministry advocates more of a push for stemming infections, Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health at Israel’s Health Ministry, told Kan Radio on Sunday.

“It’s possible that there won’t be a big rise in the severely ill but the price of making such a mistake is what’s worrying us,” she said.

But many other scientists are supportive.

“I am very much in favor of Israel’s approach,” said Nadav Davidovitch, director of the school of public health at Israel’s Ben Gurion University, describing it as a “golden path” between Britain’s easing of restrictions and countries such as Australia that take a tougher line.

THE VIRUS ‘WON’T STOP’

Israel’s last lockdown was enforced in December, about a week after the start of what has been one of the world’s fastest vaccination programs.

New daily COVID-19 infections are running at about 450. The Delta variant, first identified in India, now makes up about 90% of cases.

“We estimate that we won’t reach high waves of severe cases like in previous waves,” the health ministry’s director-general, Nachman Ash, said last week. “But if we see that the number and increase rate of severe cases are endangering the (health) system, then we will have to take further steps.”

Around 60% of Israel’s 9.3 million population have received at least one shot of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine. On Sunday, the government began offering a third shot to people with a compromised immune system.

Ran Balicer, chair of the government’s expert panel on COVID-19, said Israel had on average had about five severe cases of the virus and one death per day in the last week, after two weeks of zero deaths related to COVID-19.

Noting the impact of the Delta variant, he said the panel was advising caution over the removal of restrictions.

“We do not have enough data from our local outbreak to be able to predict with accuracy what would happen if we let go,” Balicer said.

Some studies have shown that though high, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine’s effectiveness against the Delta variant is lower than against other coronavirus strains.

Drawing criticism from some scientists, Pfizer and BioNTech SE have said they will ask U.S. and European regulators to authorize booster shots to head off increased risk of infection six months after inoculation.

Israel is in no rush to approve public booster shots, saying there is no unequivocal data yet showing they are necessary. It is offering approval only to people with weak immune systems on a case-by-case basis.

Authorities are also considering allowing children under 12 to take the vaccine on a case-by-case basis if they suffer from health conditions that put them at high risk of serious complications if they were to catch the virus.

Only “a few hundred” of the 5.5 million people who have been vaccinated in Israel have later been infected with COVID-19, Ash said.

Before the Delta variant arrived, Israel had estimated 75% of the population would need to be vaccinated to reach “herd immunity” – the level at which enough of a population are immunized to be able to effectively stop a disease spreading. The estimated threshold is now 80%.

Such data ensure doctors remain concerned.

“…the virus won’t stop. It is evolving, it’s its nature. But our nature is to survive,” said Dr. Gadi Segal, head of the coronavirus ward at Sheba Medical Centre near Tel Aviv.

(Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Timothy Heritage)

‘Be cautious’: Johnson goes ahead with lifting England’s COVID curbs

By Costas Pitas and Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people on Monday to show caution when nearly all remaining COVID-19 restrictions are lifted in England next week, saying an increase in cases underlined that the pandemic was by no means over.

England will from July 19 be the first nation in Britain to lift the legal requirement to wear masks and for people to socially distance. The government says Britain’s vaccination drive – one of the world’s fastest – has largely broken the link between infections and serious illness or death.

But what was once billed as “freedom day” is now being treated with wariness by ministers after a new surge in cases and fears that there could be as many as 100,000 new infections a day over the summer.

Johnson set a somber tone, defending his decision to lift most of the remaining restrictions by saying the four conditions the government set itself had been met, but also warning the country that more people would die from the coronavirus.

“We think now is the right moment to proceed…But it is absolutely vital that we proceed now with caution and I cannot say this powerfully or emphatically enough – this pandemic is not over,” he told a press conference.

“To take these steps we must be cautious and must be vaccinated,” he said, adding that England would see “more hospitalizations and more deaths from COVID”.

Johnson added: “I generally urge everyone to keep thinking of others and to consider the risks.”

Earlier, health minister Sajid Javid told parliament that people should still wear masks in crowded areas like on public transport and should only gradually move back to the workplace, and that the government would encourage businesses holding mass events to use health certification as a way to open up.

Business welcomed the move, but also called on the government to offer clearer guidance. Claire Walker, co-executive director of the British Chambers of Commerce, said companies still did not have the full picture they needed.

“Business leaders aren’t public health experts and cannot be expected to know how best to operate when confusing and sometimes contradictory advice is coming from official sources,” she said.

GLOBAL STRUGGLE

After 18 months of pandemic, governments around the world have been wrestling with how and when to reopen their economies.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded on Monday that coronavirus restrictions had been lifted in the Netherlands too soon and he apologized as infections surged to their highest levels of the year.

Britain has implemented one of the world’s swiftest vaccination programs, with more than 87% of adults having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 66% having received two.

The Conservative government argues that the fact that deaths and hospital admissions remain far lower than before, even though cases have risen sharply, is proof that the vaccines are saving lives and it is now safer to open up.

But the surge in infections to rates unseen since the winter has raised concern, with some epidemiologists saying the Euro soccer championships might have helped fuel the rise.

Britain, which ranks 20th in the world for per-capita reported deaths from COVID-19, on Monday reported a further 34,471 COVID-19 cases, up 26% in a week, and six additional deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

London’s Wembley Stadium hosted the Euro 2020 final on Sunday between England and Italy. Large crowds gathered in London, including around the stadium, and there were reports that some had gained entry to the match without tickets to join the more than 60,000 who had them – much to the dismay of the World Health Organization.

“Am I supposed to be enjoying watching transmission happening in front of my eyes?” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove tweeted in the late stages of the match.

“The #COVID19 pandemic is not taking a break tonight … #SARSCoV2 #DeltaVariant will take advantage of unvaccinated people, in crowded settings, unmasked, screaming/shouting/singing. Devastating.”

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper, William James and Michael Holden in London, Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)

Heart inflammation after COVID-19 shots higher-than-expected in study of U.S. military

By Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – Members of the U.S. military who were vaccinated against COVID-19 showed higher-than-expected rates of heart inflammation, although the condition was still extremely rare, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The study found that 23 previously healthy males with an average age of 25 complained of chest pain within four days of receiving a COVID-19 shot. The incident rate was higher than some previous estimates would have anticipated, it said.

All the patients, who at the time of the study’s publication had recovered or were recovering from myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – had received shots made by either Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE or Moderna Inc.

U.S. health regulators last week added a warning to the literature that accompanies those mRNA vaccines to flag the rare risk of heart inflammation seen primarily in young males. But they said the benefit of the shots in preventing COVID-19 clearly continues to outweigh the risk.

The study, which was published in the JAMA Cardiology medical journal, said 19 of the patients were current military members who had received their second vaccine dose. The others had either received one dose or were retired from the military.

General population estimates would have predicted eight or fewer cases of myocarditis from the 436,000 male military members who received two COVID-19 shots, the study said.

An outside panel of experts advising the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that reports of myocarditis were higher in males and in the week after the second vaccine dose than would be anticipated in the general population. A presentation at that meeting found the heart condition turned up at a rate of about 12.6 cases per million people vaccinated.

Eight of the military patients in the study were given diagnostic scans and showed signs of heart inflammation that could not be explained by other causes, the study said. The patients in the study ranged from ages 20 to 51.

The CDC began investigating the potential link between the mRNA vaccines and myocarditis in April after Israel flagged that it was studying such cases in people who received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine there, and after a report that the U.S. military had also found cases.

Health regulators in several countries are conducting their own investigations.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Pandemic tied to spike in diabetes in children; type of immune response lasts months after Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Pandemic tied to sharp rise in type 2 diabetes in kids

Hospitalization rates for children with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes more than doubled during the pandemic, two hospitals reported at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, held virtually this year. At Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, children with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes accounted for 0.62% of inpatients from March through December 2020, up from 0.27% the year before. Those numbers are low, “but just the fact that this rate has more than doubled over the past year is … significant,” said Dr. Daniel Hsia of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Children hospitalized in 2020 had more severe diabetes, with higher blood sugar and more dehydration, than children admitted in the prior year, he said. At Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, cases of new-onset type 2 diabetes in children increased 233% from 2019 to 2020 – and the children were sicker than in previous years, a separate team reported. Most of these children at both hospitals had not previously had COVID-19. Social distancing measures may have kept children from having regular physical activity and contributed to weight gain, and also kept parents from taking them for routine medical care, all of which may have contributed to more severe illness, researchers speculated. “Our study reinforces the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for children even under such difficult circumstances” Hsia said in a statement.

Immune cell “factories” work longer after mRNA vaccines

The tiny “factories” in lymph nodes that churn out antibody-producing B cells to fight infections, called germinal centers, were still functioning to hold COVID-19 at bay for months after people received the mRNA vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer, according to a new study. After most vaccines, germinal centers last only a few weeks. “Germinal centers are the key to a persistent, protective immune response,” said Ali Ellebedy of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who coauthored a report on Monday in Nature. “Germinal centers are where our immune memories are formed. And the longer we have a germinal center, the stronger and more durable our immunity will be because there’s a fierce selection process happening there, and only the best immune cells survive.” Researchers studied cells from germinal centers in armpit lymph nodes of 14 recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Three weeks after the first dose, all 14 had germinal centers that were still generating B cells. B-cell production “expanded greatly” after the second shot and stayed high, they reported. Eight of 10 people biopsied 15 weeks after the first dose, still had functioning germinal centers. “We’re still monitoring the germinal centers, and … in some people, they’re still ongoing,” Ellebedy said. “This is truly remarkable.” The same effect is likely also true for Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, the researchers believe. Ultimately, immune cells called T cells are what sustains the germinal centers’ work after they disappear. The researchers plan next to investigate the magnitude and durability of T cell responses after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Following AstraZeneca with Pfizer shot boosts antibody response

Giving a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine four weeks after an AstraZeneca shot produces better immune responses than a second dose of AstraZeneca’s, Oxford University researchers said on Monday. In a study of 830 older adults, mixed two-dose schedules of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines produced higher concentrations of antibodies against the coronavirus that a full schedule of the AstraZeneca shot. The most effective approach – two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine – produced levels of antibodies about 10 times higher than two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the researchers reported on Friday in a Lancet preprint. However, the AstraZeneca shot followed by a Pfizer jab induced antibody levels about as high as two Pfizer/BioNTech doses. Giving the Pfizer shot first, followed by AstraZeneca’s, was not as successful. That combination yielded antibody levels higher than two AstraZeneca shots but lower than two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. There were no new safety issues uncovered in the study. Matthew Snape, the Oxford professor behind the trial, said the findings could be used to give flexibility to vaccine rollouts but were not significant enough to recommend a broad shift away from clinically approved schedules.

COVID-19, not Pfizer’s vaccine, tied to Bell’s palsy

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has not been linked with a higher risk for the facial nerve paralysis known as Bell’s palsy, but COVID-19 itself does increase the risk, suggest two separate studies published on Thursday in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. One study involved 110 people in Israel who received the Pfizer vaccine, including 37 in whom the characteristic facial droop developed on average nine days after the first dose or 14 days after the second. After accounting for underlying risk factors for Bell’s palsy, the researchers concluded the vaccine itself did not increase the risk. Furthermore, they found, rates of Bell’s palsy had not gone up during the vaccine rollout. In the second study, researchers compared Bell’s palsy rates among roughly 348,000 patients with COVID-19 and roughly 63,500 people who had been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The Bell’s palsy risk was nearly seven times higher in those with COVID-19, they found. “Our data suggest that rates of facial nerve palsy are higher in patients who are positive for COVID-19, and this incidence exceeds the reported incidence of Bell’s Palsy with the COVID-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Akina Tamaki of University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, who coauthored that study. “Taken together, it supports that the vaccine is safe from a facial nerve paralysis standpoint.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks, Marilynn Larkin and Alistair Smout; Editing by Bill Berkrot)