Booster shot improves immune response of chemotherapy sufferers; post-COVID despair helped by broadly used medication By Reuters

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The next is a abstract of some current research on COVID-19. They embrace analysis that warrants additional examine to corroborate the findings and which have but to be licensed by peer assessment.

Chemo sufferers’ response to vaccine improves with booster

A brand new examine helps quantify the improved safety in opposition to COVID-19 achieved with a 3rd booster dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc (NYSE:) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:) in most cancers sufferers who’re present process chemotherapy. “Chemotherapy can weaken the flexibility of most cancers sufferers to struggle off infections and to reply appropriately to vaccines,” stated Deepta Bhattacharya of the College of Arizona School of Drugs, coauthor of the examine reported in Nature Drugs. Her group studied 53 sufferers receiving chemotherapy for solid-tumor cancers who obtained two photographs of the vaccine. Virtually the entire topics had an immune response after vaccination. However “the magnitude of those responses was worse than in individuals with out most cancers in virtually each metric that we measured,” Bhattacharya stated. “In all probability, this leaves most cancers sufferers extra prone to an infection and COVID-19 than wholesome vaccinated individuals.” The researchers have been in a position to carry again 20 of the examine members for a 3rd vaccine dose, to see if immune responses would enhance. “The degrees of antibodies improved in about 80% of the most cancers sufferers,” Bhattacharya stated. “Our knowledge on most cancers sufferers helps the CDC’s broad tips that people who find themselves immunocompromised ought to obtain a 3rd dose of the Pfizer vaccine.”

Publish-COVID despair responds properly to therapy

Lingering despair in COVID-19 survivors could also be extremely treatable, a small Italian examine suggests. Docs handled 58 sufferers who had developed post-COVID despair with a broadly used class of antidepressant medication often called selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs. These embrace sertraline, offered by Pfizer underneath the model title Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:)’s Paxil (paroxetine), Eli Lilly (NYSE:) and Co’s Prozac (fluoxetine) and Celexa (citalopram) from AbbVie (NYSE:)’s Allergan (NYSE:) unit. Normally, about 66% of sufferers see enchancment with SSRIs, however amongst these with post-COVID-19 despair, 91% responded to therapy inside 4 weeks, researchers reported this week on the European School of Neuropsychopharmacology assembly in Lisbon. They speculate that despair after COVID-19 is said to irritation attributable to the coronavirus, and notice that SSRIs have some anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. Dr. Livia De Picker of the College of Antwerp in Belgium, who was not concerned within the examine, stated in an announcement that the findings are notably vital for survivors with the syndrome of persistent signs often called Lengthy COVID, which regularly contains despair. A separate examine introduced on the assembly discovered that whereas SSRIs eased despair in COVID-19 survivors, the medication had much less of an impact on their nervousness ranges.

Viral hundreds related in vaccinated, unvaccinated sufferers

Vaccinated people ought to proceed to put on masks in public as a result of they’ll nonetheless carry – and presumably shed – as a lot virus as unvaccinated individuals and never notice it, knowledge from a brand new examine confirms. Researchers studied viral ranges at prognosis in 869 sufferers, together with 632 who have been asymptomatic. Many of the infections have been attributable to the extremely contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus. They discovered no statistically vital variations in common viral hundreds between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, or between these with or with out signs, or amongst totally different age teams, genders, or vaccine sorts, in response to a report posted on medRxiv on Tuesday forward of peer assessment. “Our examine doesn’t present info on infectiousness,” stated Richard Michelmore of the College of California, Davis, noting that virus transmission is influenced by a number of elements, not simply vaccination standing and viral load. “It’s not OK to imagine that since you are vaccinated that you simply can not change into contaminated and can’t infect another person, even when asymptomatic,” he stated. COVID-19 vaccines do lower the chances of an infection and scale back an infection severity. Nevertheless, individuals vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 ought to nonetheless put on masks in public as a result of they may infect others in the event that they themselves change into contaminated, researchers suggested.

Click on for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on vaccines in growth.