LIVE BLOG: R&D response to COVID-19 pandemic (archived)

02 Jun 2022 | Live Blog
Covid 19 blog

The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting universities and research institutes across the world. But the same institutions are also working very hard to find out how the disease can be stopped and its effects mitigated.

Follow this live blog for the latest updates on how the crisis is impacting research and innovation, and what governments, funders, companies, universities, associations and scientists are doing to stop or cope with the pandemic.

You can read the full archive of this blog here and here.

Antibiotic Research UK released new research on antibiotic prescribing in England during the first 12 months of the pandemic, showing there was a 17% reduction in the prescribing of antibiotics in general practice compared to the previous year.

Analysis of the data also reveals that the rise in antibiotic prescribing that occurs each winter, from December to February, compared to the summer, from June to August, was considerably lower at 4%, compared to the rise seen in the winter of 2019 to 2020, before the pandemic began, when it was 21%.  

This study highlights the potential of sustaining lower antibiotic prescribing rates in general practice, according to Colin Garner chief executive of Antibiotic Research UK, a charity which is working to address the rise of antimicrobial resistance.

“Although typical cough symptoms can take up to three weeks to resolve, we also know that antibiotics for most respiratory tract infections - your typical cough, sore throat, earache - do not speed up recovery times. Instead, they often give patients many side effects, and promote the development of resistant bacteria,” Garner said.

The dramatic fall in antibiotic prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic could be due to many factors, including less infection transmission during lockdowns and fewer visits to GPs. More work is needed to understand the extent to which each of these factors has resulted in this drop in antibiotic prescribing.

But, Garner said, “The data does tell us that antibiotic prescribing can be reduced to help protect us all from the danger of the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.”

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the heads of Europe’s national drug regulators have agreed to expedite the review of Merck’s antiviral pill for treating COVID-19, after the UK approved the drug last week.

The context for speeding up the review of molnupiravir is the need for additional guidance on COVID-19 treatments in light of rising rates of infection and deaths due to COVID-19 across the EU. 

This will help national authorities in decisions on whether to use the antiviral prior to its authorisation. 

While the EMA’s more comprehensive rolling review is ongoing ahead of a possible application for marketing approval, this will provide EU-wide recommendations in the shortest possible timeframe.

Molnupiravir is an oral antiviral medicine that reduces the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to multiply in the body, by increasing the number of mutations in the virus in a way that impairs its ability to replicate. 

Emer Cooke, EMA executive director, requested the expedited review following discussions with EMA’s COVID-19 pandemic task force, which brings together experts from across the European medicines regulatory network.

A new study in the journal Veterinary Record shows that pets can be infected with the alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was first detected in Kent, UK, last December.

The study describes the first identification of the SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant in domestic pets; two cats and one dog were positive on PCR testing, while two additional cats and one dog displayed antibodies two to six weeks after they developed signs of cardiac disease. Many owners of these pets had developed respiratory symptoms several weeks before their pets became ill and had also tested positive for COVID-19.  

All of these pets had an acute onset of cardiac disease, including severe myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.

“Our study reports the first cases of cats and dogs affected by the COVID-19 alpha variant and highlights, more than ever, the risk that companion animals can become infected with SARS-CoV-2,” said lead author Luca Ferasin, of the Ralph Veterinary Referral Centre, in the UK.

“We also reported the atypical clinical manifestations characterised by severe heart abnormalities, which is a well-recognised complication in people affected by COVID-19, but has never described in pets before. However, COVID-19 infection in pets remains a relatively rare condition and, based on our observations, it seems that the transmission occurs from humans to pets, rather than vice versa.”

Meanwhile, researchers in the US have shown that 40% of white deer from animals sampled across the country tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and conclude the infection passed from humans to deer and is now being transmitted deer-to-deer.

Evidence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from human to animals and then spreading among animals is of concern because of the potential for an increased number of mutations promoting the development of more virulent variants.

The possibility exists that new animal reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 could emerge, each with unique potential to maintain, disseminate, and drive novel evolution of the virus. Of particular concern are wildlife species that are both abundant and live in close association with humans

Birmingham University has signed a licensing agreement to commercialise a novel anti-viral nasal spray that protects against COVID-19.

COVID-19 is both contracted and transmitted by inhalation of droplets or aerosols containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the nose is the major viral entry point into the body. The anti-viral spray is designed to work by encapsulating and deactivating the virus while it is still in the nose, preventing its wider uptake by the body.

It is formulated with two compounds that are already approved by regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe and the US, and widely used in drugs and food products.

The first is a polysaccharide gel which is retained on the mucous-coated epithelia in the nose where it coats and retains the virus, so the virus does not travel further down the respiratory tract. The second compound, carrageenan, is a potent antiviral agent.    

Researchers in Birmingham have confirmed the complete inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 activity by carrageenan and the ability of the formulation to prevent contraction and transmission in cell culture.

They also confirmed that the spray covers a surface area that is six times greater than when formulated without the gel.

The formulation, engineered by Liam Grover, from the university’s Healthcare Technologies Institute, has been licensed to the company Birmingham Biotech for commercialisation. “As COVID-19 restrictions around the world are gradually lifting, there is a real need for effective methods of viral protection. While existing measures like wearing masks and handwashing remain essential, this nasal spray provides an additional protective measure with the potential to reduce transmission,” Grover said.

Worldwide carbon emissions in 2021 are set to rebound to close to pre-COVID levels, according to the 16th edition of the Global Carbon Project.

COVID-19 lockdowns caused fossil carbon emissions to drop by 5.4% in 2020, but the new report projects an increase of 4.9% this year, to 36.4 billion tonnes.

Emissions from coal and gas will grow more in 2021 than they fell in 2020, but emissions from oil use remain below 2019 levels.

For major emitters, 2021 emissions appear to be returning to the pre-COVID trends of decreasing CO2 emissions for the US and EU, and increasing CO2 emissions for India. For China, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked further growth in CO2 emissions, pushed by the power and industry sectors.

The researchers say a further rise in emissions in 2022 cannot be ruled out if road transport and aviation return to pre-pandemic levels and coal use is stable.

"The rapid rebound in emissions as economies recover from the pandemic reinforces the need for immediate global action on climate change," said Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter University’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

"The rebound in global fossil CO2 emissions in 2021 reflects a return towards the pre-COVID fossil-based economy. Investments in the green economy in post-pandemic recovery plans of some countries have been insufficient so far, on their own, to avoid a substantial return close to pre-COVID emissions," Friedlingstein said.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Agency has become the first to approve Merck and Co’s oral antiviral drug Lagevrio, after concluding it reduces the risk of hospitalisation and death in people with mild to moderate COVID-19 who are at increased risk of developing severe disease.

Lagevrio works by preventing the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating, keeping virus levels low in the body and reducing the severity of the disease. It is most effective when taken during the early stages of infection and so the recommendation is to use it as soon as possible following a positive COVID-19 test, and within five days of symptoms onset.

The approval is for treating people who have mild to moderate COVID-19 and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, older age (>60 years), diabetes or heart disease.

June Raine, MHRA Chief Executive said Lagevrio is the first antiviral for COVID-19 that can be taken by mouth rather than administered intravenously. “This is important, because it means it can be administered outside of a hospital setting, before COVID-19 has progressed to a severe stage,” she said.

Merck’s application to the US Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorisation of Lagevrio is under review, while the European Medicines Agency has started a rolling review of the marketing authorisation application.

The US government has agreed to purchase 1.7 million courses of treatment, while the UK has placed an initial order for 480,000, which will be used in a real world trial designed to gather further data on the effectiveness of Lagevrio.

The damage caused by COVID-19 to the lungs’ smallest blood vessels has been intricately imaged by scientists from the European Synchrotron Research Facility and University College London (UCL), using high-energy X-rays emitted by a newly updated particle accelerator.

The new imaging technology, Hierarchical Phase Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), enables 3D mapping across a range of scales, allowing clinicians to view the whole organ as never before by imaging it as a whole and then zooming down to cellular level.

The technique relies on X-rays generated by the European Synchrotron particle accelerator in Grenoble, France, which following a recent upgrade, now provides the brightest source of X-rays in the world, at 100 billion times brighter than a hospital X-ray.

The enables the imaging of blood vessels down to five microns in diameter, a tenth of the diameter of a hair, in an intact human lung. In comparison a clinical grade CT scan only resolves blood vessels that are about 100 times larger, around 1mm in diameter.

Using HiP-CT, the research team in the UK, France and Germany, have seen how severe COVID-19 infection shunts blood between the two separate systems in the lungs, moving it from the capillaries which oxygenate the blood, to those which feed the lung tissue itself. Such cross-linking stops the patient’s blood from being properly oxygenated, a finding which was previously hypothesised but not proven.

Claire Walsh of UCL’s Department of Mechanical Engineering said the ability to see organs across scales like this will “really be revolutionary” for medical imaging. “As we start to link our HiP-CT images to clinical images through artificial intelligence techniques, we will for the first time be able to highly accurately validate ambiguous findings in clinical images,” she said.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 induces a sustained and fully functional memory T cell immune response for up to six months after the second dose, according to a new study of 71 healthcare workers and scientists in Italy who received the vaccine.

The research by Gisella Guerrera and colleagues at the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome, indicates the vaccine offers long-lived immunity against SARS-CoV-2, creating a persistent reservoir of potent cells specifically targeted to the virus.

The research published in Science this week found that vaccination induced an anti-viral memory T cell response that included both CD4+ and CD8+ stem memory cells that can perform multiple immune functions, from spurring cytokine production to stimulate the immune system, to interacting with B cells to promote antibody production.

It is far harder to measure T cells than antibodies, meaning antibody levels are looked to in assessing waning immune responses. The researchers suggest that with more than 90% of the vaccinated study subjects developing T cells with these lasting protective features, their findings could have implications for discussions about the use of third “booster” doses of the vaccine.

US biotech Novavax announced it completed the rolling submission of data on its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Canadian regulator Health Canada, as the vaccine received its first approval from the regulator in Indonesia.

The product, NVX-CoV2373, is the only protein-based vaccine to have gained an approval.

In a Brazil/US clinical trial it was over 100% effective in preventing serious infections, and 90.4% effective overall.

In a phase III trial involving 15,000 participants in the UK, the vaccine demonstrated efficacy of 96.4% against the original virus strain, 86.3% against the Alpha variant and 89.7% efficacy overall. 

Novavax has a manufacturing partnership with the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest supplier of COVID-19 vaccines.

“This is a landmark moment for Novavax and our partner, Serum Institute of India, and it is the first of many authorisations that Novavax expects in the coming weeks and months for our vaccine globally,” said Stanley Erck, Novavax CEO.

The vaccine was engineered from the genetic sequence of the first strain of SARS-CoV-2, using Novavax's recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike protein.

It will be packaged as a ready-to-use liquid formulation in a vial containing ten doses, and can be stored in conventional refrigerators, meaning it is possible to distribute it through existing vaccine supply channels, potentially increasing access in hard-to-reach areas of Indonesia and other countries with low COVID-19 vaccination rates.

"Access to supply of a safe and highly effective vaccine, coupled with the ease of its distribution, should be a critical enabler to help Indonesia control the current coronavirus outbreak," said Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India.

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major challenges in containing the COVID-19 pandemic and previous studies have revealed that mass communication, through television and radio adverts, is not a very effective means of persuading the hesitant.

It is known that having the chance to discuss your particular concerns with an expert whom you trust can be more persuasive, but having a face-to-face talk with every vaccine-hesitant individual is impractical.

To overcome this problem, a team of cognitive scientists from the Institut Jean-Nicod and the Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Computationnelles created a chatbot that provides users with answers to 51 common questions about COVID-19 vaccines.

Chatbots have the advantage of offering quick, personalised Q and A sessions while reaching a large number of people.

The team tested their chatbot with 338 individuals and compared their reactions to those of a control group of 305 participants who read a brief paragraph that gave information about COVID-19 vaccines.

After a few minutes of interaction with the chatbot, the number of participants with positive views of vaccination increased by 37%. People were also more open to getting vaccinated after using the chatbot: declarations of vaccine refusal fell 20%. Such changes in attitude were negligible in the control group.

It remains to be seen whether the effects of chatbot interaction are lasting, and whether they are the same across age groups, and among those most resistant to vaccination.

Nevertheless, the study demonstrated that a chatbot can indirectly reach a very large audience: half of the experimental group later tried to persuade others to get vaccinated, with three-quarters of them stating they drew on information provided by the chatbot to do so.

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