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Health

An Ancient Killer Is Rapidly Becoming Resistant to Antibiotics, Scientists Warn

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Typhoid fever might be rare in developed countries, but this ancient threat, thought to have been around for millennia, is still very much a danger in our modern world.

According to new research, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever is evolving extensive drug resistance, and it’s rapidly replacing strains that aren’t resistant.

 

Currently, antibiotics are the only way to effectively treat typhoid, which is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S Typhi). Yet over the past three decades, the bacterium’s resistance to oral antibiotics has been growing and spreading.

Sequencing the genomes of 3,489 S Typhi strains contracted from 2014 to 2019 in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, researchers found a recent rise in extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Typhi. 

XDR Typhi is not only impervious to frontline antibiotics, like ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, but it is also growing resistant to newer antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins.

Even worse, these strains are spreading globally at a rapid rate.

While most XDR Typhi cases stem from south Asia, researchers have identified nearly 200 instances of international spread since 1990. 

Most strains have been exported to Southeast Asia, as well as East and Southern Africa, but typhoid superbugs have also been found in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

“The speed at which highly-resistant strains of S. Typhi have emerged and spread in recent years is a real cause for concern, and highlights the need to urgently expand prevention measures, particularly in countries at greatest risk,” says infectious disease specialist Jason Andrews from Stanford University.

 

Scientists have been warning about drug-resistant typhoid for years now, but the new research is the largest genome analysis on the bacterium to date.

In 2016, the first XDR typhoid strain was identified in Pakistan. By 2019, it had become the dominant genotype in the nation.

Historically, most XDR typhoid strains have been fought with third-generation antimicrobials, like quinolones, cephalosporins, and macrolides.

But by the early 2000s, mutations that confer resistance to quinolones accounted for more than 85 percent of all cases in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Singapore. At the same time, cephalosporin resistance was also taking over.

Today, only one oral antibiotic is left: the macrolide, azithromycin. And this medicine might not work for much longer.

The new study found mutations that confer resistance to azithromycin are now also spreading, “threatening the efficacy of all oral antimicrobials for typhoid treatment”. While these mutations have not yet been adopted by XDR S Typhi, if they are, we are in serious trouble.

If untreated, up to 20 percent of typhoid cases can be fatal, and today, there are 11 million cases of typhoid a year.

 

Future outbreaks can be prevented to some extent with typhoid conjugate vaccines, but if access to these shots is not expanded globally, the world could soon have another health crisis on its hands.

“The recent emergence of XDR and azithromycin-resistant S Typhi creates greater urgency for rapidly expanding prevention measures, including use of typhoid conjugate vaccines in typhoid-endemic countries,” the authors write.

“Such measures are needed in countries where antimicrobial resistance prevalence among S Typhi isolates is currently high, but given the propensity for international spread, should not be restricted to such settings.”

South Asia might be the main hub for typhoid fever, accounting for 70 percent of all cases, but if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that disease variants in our modern, globalized world are easily spread.

To prevent that from happening, health experts argue nations must expand access to typhoid vaccines and invest in new antibiotic research. One recent study in India, for instance, estimates that if children are vaccinated against typhoid in urban areas, it could prevent up to 36 percent of typhoid cases and deaths.

 

Pakistan is currently leading the way on this front. It is the first nation in the world to offer routine immunization for typhoid. Last year, millions of children were administered the vaccine, and health experts argue more nations need to follow suit.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the world’s leading causes of death, claiming the lives of more people than HIV/AIDS or malaria. Where available, vaccines are some of the best tools we have to prevent future catastrophe.

We don’t have time to waste.

The study was published in The Lancet Microbe.

 

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World

A Tanker’s Giant U-Turn Reveals Strains in the Market for Russian Oil

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Much of that demand is expected to come from Asia. India’s purchases of Russian oil, in particular, has jumped more than 700 percent in the five weeks since the start of the war in Ukraine compared to the previous five weeks, according to data from the Russian Tanker Tracking Group.

As shipments to Asia have risen, Europe has shown a desire to cut purchases of Russian crude, said Reid L’Anson, senior commodity economist at Kpler, said in an email.

Tracking the drifting oil tankers at sea was important to start figuring out the new picture for Russian oil exports, he said. While it wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary to have some tankers with unknown destinations, “given the situation in Russia, tracking these flows will be critical,” he said. “I’m going to be very interested to see just how much Asia fills the gap left by European buying,” he added.

Part of the West’s shift away from Russian oil has come on the heels of growing public pressure.

When the Minerva Virgo, a 50,000-ton Croatia-flagged tanker carrying Russian petrochemicals, docked in New York last week, the environmental group Greenpeace staged a protest in the harbor, with activists in rubber boats holding up signs that read “Oil Fuels War.”

(Several days later, a smaller tanker carrying Russian chemicals also headed for New York, the Vinjerac, changed its destination to “Drifting” a short distance from the shore and has not docked.)

In the United Kingdom, dockworkers at the Birkenhead Docks in northwest England earlier this month refused to unload a German-flagged tanker. Workers would “under no circumstances unload any Russian oil,” a local union leader told Sky News. The United Kingdom has banned Russian tankers from British ports but the order doesn’t apply to vessels from other countries carrying Russian oil.

In response to the invasion, major oil companies have said they are stepping away from their investments in Russia. Companies like BP, Shell, TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil have all said they would not sign new oil contracts with Russia.

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Health

A Toxic Fungus Could Be Contributing to Some People’s Irritable Bowel Disease

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Some strains of yeast in the human gut can produce toxins that could contribute to irritable bowel disease (IBD), according to new research.

These “high-damaging” Candida albicans yeast strains aren’t usually a problem when they are kept in balance, but in the guts of those with IBD, the fungi appear to proliferate, triggering inflammation.

 

The research was focused on a form of IBD known as ulcerative colitis (UC), which is marked by inflammation and frequent ulceration of the lining in the large intestine. In this part of the gut, fungi are also highly abundant and rich in diversity.

When scientists compared the colons of 40 UC patients against 38 controls who didn’t have IBD, they found C. albicans strains were over-represented in the guts of those with UC.

The more severe the case, the more likely the patient was to show a higher abundance of Candida in their colon.

To test how these strains impact inflammation, researchers turned to mouse models. In mice without colon inflammation, the yeast strains identified in humans did not proliferate. But in mice with colon inflammation, mimicking UC, the yeast did.

Looking closer, researchers realized some yeast strains were producing a potent toxin called candidalysin, which can damage immune cells, triggering further inflammation.

Even when the sickest mice were given steroids, a common prescription for UC, the “high-damaging” strains of gut fungi continued secreting toxins, which could explain why current IBD treatments often fail to resolve symptoms.

 

“Our findings suggest that C. albicans strains do not cause spontaneous intestinal inflammation in a host with intact immunity,” says Iliyan Iliev from Weill Cornell Medicine at Cornell University in the US.

“But they do expand in the intestines when inflammation is present and can be a factor that influences response to therapy in our models and perhaps in patients.”

In other words, for most people, C. albicans strains are not a problem. Even the ones that produce cell-damaging toxins can also help the immune system. In the gut of someone with UC, however, where inflammation is widespread, some of these yeast strains seem to take off, causing more harm than good.

However, it’s still up for debate which comes first, the toxins or the inflammation.

“We do not know whether specific strains are acquired by specific patients during the course of disease or whether they have been always there and become a problem during episodes of active disease,” says Iliev.

“Nevertheless, our findings highlight a mechanism by which commensal [that is, internal cohabitants] fungal strains can turn against their host and overdrive inflammation.”

 

In the lab, scientists found the candidalysin toxin produced via yeast can damage specific immune cells, known as macrophages.  In turn, this can trigger a storm of cytokines, which are proteins that promote inflammation via the immune system.

In mice, toxin-producing yeast induced an expansion of T-cells and white blood cells called neutrophils, which can both drive inflammation and lead to tissue damage.

Neutrophils are often more abundant in those with active IBD, and the new results suggest their presence could be tied to a rise in fungal toxins. When researchers blocked the cytokine signaling pathway that kicks neutrophils into action in mouse models, it reduced overall colon inflammation.

This signaling pathway could thus provide drug makers a target for future IBD treatments. Direct antifungal therapies could also prove useful.

Compared to the microbiota, which is the gut’s community of microbes, there is very little research out there on the fungi in our intestines, known as the mycobiota.

In fact, between 2008 and 2018, there were almost a hundred times more peer-reviewed publications on the microbiota than the mycobiota.

 

Recent research suggests that is an oversight. Bacteria and fungi in the gut have similar effects on the immune system, as well as nutrition; they can interact, too. Some forms of bacteria, for instance, appear to keep C. albicans in check.

While past studies have drawn a connection between the mycobiota and IBD, this is one of the first studies to dig into the mechanism behind this relationship.

The authors are now working on several follow-up studies to see how toxin-producing yeast inflames the colon and to figure out which patients will respond best to antifungal treatments.

The study was published in Nature.

 

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Health

Study suggests omicron symptoms more mild due to less lung damage

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The highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus causes milder symptoms because it has a less severe impact on the upper respiratory system, according to new research.

A consortium of researchers from America and Japan released a study last month revealing omicron causes less damaging effects on the lungs, nose and throat. The study was conducted on mice and hamsters and is under review for publication in a Nature Portfolio journal.

In the study, researchers said omicron results in a “lower viral burden” in animals’ upper respiratory systems, making its viral load and replication in those tracts milder and thus less damaging.

The study demonstrates “attenuated lung disease in rodents, which parallels preliminary human clinical data,” researchers concluded.

The news follows data from South Africa, where omicron first emerged, showing the country had fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths after a surge in confirmed coronavirus cases.

It also comes after a study last month published by the University of Hong Kong, which found omicron infects and multiplies 70 times faster than other variants but causes significantly less infection in the lungs.

Omicron has led to a historic spike in confirmed cases around the world and is overwhelming cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. The variant is more transmissible, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, because it can evade past immunity from infection, vaccines and boosters. 

Infectious diseases expert Anthony FauciAnthony FauciMichigan shifts, will follow CDC isolation guidance 2021’s top political celebrity moments These 3 issues will clobber Democrats in 2022   MORE said in an interview last week that the fact that omicron causes milder symptoms does not alleviate the crisis.

“We have to reserve judgement that this is such a good thing that it might be less severe,” he said. “When you have so many cases, it essentially obviates any diminution in severity because of the quantitative number of cases you will get with a highly transmissible variant such as omicron.”



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Health

Omicron ‘not the same disease’ as earlier Covid strains: Oxford scientist

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Christmas shoppers in London on Dec. 23, 2021.

Hasan Esen | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

LONDON — Horrific scenes seen in previous Covid-19 waves are “now history,” according to John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and the U.K. government’s life sciences advisor.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, Bell analyzed data from the U.K., where cases are breaking records and hospital admissions are at their highest since March. He said that the number of people in ICUs who are vaccinated remains “very, very low.”

“The incidence of severe disease and death from this disease [Covid] has basically not changed since we all got vaccinated and that’s really important to remember,” he told the BBC.

“The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago — intensive care units being full, lots of people dying prematurely — that is now history in my view and I think we should be reassured that that’s likely to continue.”

Discussing the new omicron variant, he added: “The disease does appear to be less severe, and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital, they don’t need high-flow oxygen, average length of stay is apparently three days, this is not the same disease as we were seeing a year ago.”

A U.K. government study published Thursday said that people are far less likely to be admitted to the hospital with the Covid omicron variant than with the previous delta strain.

The U.K. Health Security Agency said individuals with omicron are estimated to be between 31% and 45% less likely to attend emergency departments compared with those with delta, and 50% to 70% less likely to require admission to a hospital.

The analysis is “preliminary and highly uncertain” owing to the small numbers of omicron cases currently in hospitals, but it does tally with similar findings from scientists in South Africa and research teams at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh.

Although the number of daily deaths remains low and initial research suggests that the omicron variant is not as severe as other Covid strains, health experts have repeatedly warned that the sheer number of infections could lead to mounting fatalities and an overwhelmed health-care system.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC via email last week that even if omicron does prove to be “milder” than other strains, the potential caseload could double or triple the number of people needing hospitalization in the U.K., where the virus is rampant — with particular risk to the unvaccinated.

Looking at the U.K. specifically, he said: “At a time when NHS (National Health Service) are a) massively depleted by omicron and b) massively stretched and fatigued after two thankless years on the frontline, this would be untenable,” he said, adding that there are “no green shoots yet.”

U.K. leader Boris Johnson on Monday held off on imposing any new Covid-19 restrictions for England, at least before the end of this year.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already started new curbs to limit the spread of the omicron variant, but England has stuck with current stay-at-home orders and increased mask-wearing.

Bell said Tuesday that Johnson’s lack of action on Monday was “probably fine” and noted that people’s behavior in England had changed anyway, with many being “pretty responsible.” Hospital admissions are still below 400 a day in London, which is a seen as a crucial threshold for the government.

The U.K. has reported over 12.4 million infections — with another 129,471 on Tuesday — and at least 148,488 deaths since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, according to data complied by Johns Hopkins University.

—CNBC’s Elliot Smith and Ryan Browne contributed to this article.

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World

Australia COVID numbers hit a peak as Omicron outbreak strains domestic politics

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SYDNEY, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Australia recorded another record surge in COVID-19 infections on Tuesday as an outbreak of the highly infectious Omicron variant disrupted reopening of the economy, while state leaders argued over domestic border controls.

The country reported 11,264 new cases of the coronavirus in the previous day, according to a Reuters calculation of state figures, once again surpassing its peak of a day earlier, as it grapples with a planned reopening while the new variant rages.

There were five COVID-19 deaths reported, taking the total fatalities to just over 2,200 since the start of the pandemic. Authorities did not specify whether any of the new deaths were related to the Omicron variant.

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The Omicron variant, which medical experts say is more transmissible but less virulent than previous strains, began to spread in Australia just as the country got underway with plans to reopen for good after nearly two years of stop-start lockdowns.

With the resumption of rising case numbers – despite a vaccination rate of more than 90% for Australians aged over 16 – the country’s state leaders have brought back some containment measures like mandatory mask-wearing and QR code check-ins at public venues.

The rising case numbers have also led to mandatory self-isolation for thousands of workers in the hospitality, entertainment and airline sectors – the sectors worst hit by lockdowns – resulting in cancelled theatre shows, closed restaurants and postponed flights.

The outbreak has also fuelled a resumption of fractious domestic politics which defined much of the pandemic as some states resist calls to remove internal border controls.

New South Wales (NSW), home to Sydney and a third of Australia’s 25 million population, called on neighbouring Queensland to shift from mandatory clinical testing at the point of origin to on-the-spot rapid antigen testing for people travelling there.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said a quarter of clinical tests in his state were “tourism tests” for asymptomatic people, bringing huge pressure of the health system, long testing queues and wait times of several days for results.

In one case, a Sydney testing clinic sent incorrect negative test results to 400 COVID-positive people, then prematurely sent 950 people negative results when 486 were actually positive. The bungle was the result of “human error, and when people are under pressure, human errors are more frequent”, said Hazzard.

He called on Queensland to scrap mandatory clinical tests immediately, rather than after Jan. 1 as planned, but the Queensland authorities said the policy was working.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath instead said the state would remove another testing rule for interstate arrivals: people arriving in the state would no longer have to take a virus test five days after arriving.

Australia’s international border remains effectively closed, but Australian nationals may return without mandatory hotel quarantine and the country has said it would allow certain skilled workers and foreign students in.

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Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Michael Perry and Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Omicon infects 70 times faster than previous COVID strains: study

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A new study says that while the COVID-19 omicron variant infects the human body 70 times faster than previous coronavirus strains, the infections appear to be less severe.

Researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s LKS Faculty of Medicine found that after 24 hours of infection, the omicron variant multiplied in the human bronchus 70 times faster than the delta variant and original coronavirus strain.

They also discovered that omicron infection in the lungs was “significantly lower” than the initial COVID-19 strain, “which may be an indicator of lower disease severity,” according to a statement from the university.

The strain replicated in human lung tissue at a rate that was more than 10 times lower than the original COVID-19 strain, which suggests that it may cause less-severe illness.

The research, however, is still under peer review for publication. The researchers examined lung tissue removed for treatment that was infected with the omicron variant.

Dr. Michael Chan Chi-wai, an associate professor for the School of Public Health and one of the researchers who conducted the study, noted that virus replication is not the only factor that determines disease transmissibility.

“It is important to note that the severity of disease in humans is not determined only by virus replication but also by the host immune response to the infection, which may lead to dysregulation of the innate immune system, i.e. ‘cytokine storm,’” Chan said in a statement.

He also said that even if a virus proves to be less pathogenic, its highly infectious nature could cause more severe disease and death, which is why he said the threat from the omicron strain is “likely to be very significant.”

“It is also noted that, by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic. Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from Omicron variant is likely to be very significant,” Chan said.

The study serves as an initial look at the omicron variant, which was first discovered in South Africa last month and has a high number of mutations.

The strain has already spread to a number of countries across the globe, including the U.S. and United Kingdom.

Health experts worldwide are racing to determine the severity and transmissibility of new variant, in addition to how well existing vaccines protect against the strain.

A preliminary study released last week from researchers in Cambridge, Mass. said the omicron variant could be much more transmissible than previously believed to be because it may have evolved from the virus associated with the common cold.



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Health

Latest COVID surge strains central Minnesota hospitals

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The latest surge of COVID-19 cases is straining hospitals in central Minnesota, where vaccination rates trail other parts of the state.

In the CentraCare health care system, which operates hospitals and clinics in central Minnesota including St. Cloud, the number of hospitalized patients is higher now than during the spring surge, said Dr. George Morris, medical incident commander for CentraCare’s COVID-19 response team.

That’s led to dwindling space in the hospitals’ intensive care units — sometimes just a handful of available beds statewide, Morris said. 

He said the surge is hindering CentraCare’s ability to do scheduled surgeries and care for patients suffering from heart attacks, strokes or other non-COVID-19 conditions.

The vast majority of patients with COVID in CentraCare’s hospitals — more than 90 percent — are unvaccinated, Morris said. 

“I’m not trying to shame or blame here,” he said. “But so much of our resources have to be committed to unvaccinated COVID patients … that limits our ability to provide needed medical care for others.”

Morris attributes the strain largely to the highly contagious delta strain of the coronavirus. A higher percentage of COVID-19 cases are patients under 50 years old — roughly 30 to 50 percent, compared to 10 to 20 percent during the early stages of the pandemic, he said.

CentraCare also is seeing more children with COVID-19, ranging from infants to age 18, Morris said.

As kids have been interacting more and returning to school, sports and activities, there’s also been a spike in other respiratory illnesses such as influenza and RSV, he said. On top of that, hospitals tend to see more trauma cases in the summer months, when traffic is up and people are spending time outdoors.

“It’s just that this time, it’s COVID on top of everything else, at a level that is bigger or worse than what we saw in March, in April,” Morris said.

Pediatric ICU beds are limited in greater Minnesota — St. Cloud Hospital, for example, has just four. Morris said during the earlier COVID-19 surge, those beds were used to treat adults, but now they are needed for children.

In several central Minnesota counties, fewer than half of residents 12 or older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the state Department of Health. 

Nurse Lynette Van London prepares to administer the first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 at the St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, Minn.

Paul Middlestaedt for MPR News 2020

To make sure the health care system doesn’t get too overburdened, Morris said it’s important for people eligible to get the vaccine to do so, and wear masks in schools and other indoor public places.

“If you want the last line of defense to be available, then I would expect all of us to be thinking about, ‘Well, what can I do as a citizen of Minnesota to prevent COVID spreading wildly in our communities?’” he said.

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Science

One antibody stops all strains of COVID-19 from infecting cells

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A newly discovered antibody was able to neutralize not only all strains of COVID-19, but other coronaviruses known to cause respiratory infections in humans — a potential silver bullet for a whole class of deadly, flu-like viruses.

Mutant viruses: As viruses spread, they undergo tiny genetic mutations, and when we find a unique version of the virus, we call it a new strain. 

Occasionally, new strains appear that can spread more easily, evade the immune system, or cause more severe disease.

Several worrisome strains of COVID-19 have already appeared during the pandemic — including the Delta variant and, more recently, C.1.2 — and we’re sure to encounter more before it’s over.

Antibody drugs: Mutations in the coronavirus’s “spike protein” are particularly troubling. This protein is found on the outside of the virus, and it attaches to “receptor” spots on our cells to break in and destroy them.

Antibodies can bind to the spike to prevent them from attaching to cells, and researchers can turn particularly effective antibodies (discovered in COVID-19 survivors) into drugs, called monoclonal antibodies, to treat people battling infections.

“[The antibody] appears to neutralize all … coronaviruses that cause respiratory infections in mammals.”

Jay Nix

The FDA has already authorized three such antibody drugs, but because the spike protein is mutating, the drugs that neutralize today’s strains of COVID-19 might not work on tomorrow’s.

The government has already pulled approval for one such drug, which no longer works against new variants when used by itself.

Targeting all strains of COVID-19: Now, an international research team has discovered a COVID-19 antibody with unprecedented neutralizing power.

“This antibody, which binds to a previously unknown site on the coronavirus spike protein, appears to neutralize all known sarbecoviruses — the genus of coronaviruses that cause respiratory infections in mammals,” researcher Jay Nix of UC Berkeley said in a press release.

“And, due to the unique binding site on [a] mutation-resistant part of the virus, it may well be more difficult for a new strain to escape,” he added.

Tests in hamsters suggest it might be able to prevent COVID-19 infections, too.

Looking ahead: So far, the ability of this antibody, dubbed S2H97, to neutralize all strains of COVID-19 has only been tested in the lab — more research is needed to find out how effective it might be at treating people.

Tests in hamsters suggest it might be able to prevent COVID-19 infections, but again, that still needs to be proved in humans.

If the antibody is able to live up to the hype, though, it could be a powerful weapon against all strains of COVID-19 — as well as other deadly coronaviruses like SARS and any future coronavirus pandemics.

We’d love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at tips@freethink.com.

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Health

New antibody can stop all COVID strains, variants like delta, lambda

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A team of researchers may have found an antibody that can neutralize all known novel coronavirus strains, including the developing variants.

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology recently conducted a huge collaborative study by scientists and developed a new antibody therapy, called Sotrovimab. During the project, they discovered a new natural antibody “that has remarkable breadth and efficacy,” according to the Berkeley Lab.

The scientists reportedly discovered a new antibody, called S309, which “neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 strains — including newly emerged mutants that can now ‘escape’ from previous antibody therapies — as well as the closely related original SARS-CoV virus,” according to a press release from the Berkeley Lab.

Structural biologist Jay Nix, who was involved with the project, said the antibody can potentially stop all coronaviruses similar to COVID-19.

The researchers want to do more tests with the antibodies using hamsters. They hope to give it prophylactically, meaning through treatments.

“And, due to the unique binding site on mutation-resistant part of the virus, it may well be more difficult for a new strain to escape,” he said in a release from Berkeley Lab.

The information about the antibody was published in the journal Nature.

A similar study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine said that researchers found “high-level, broad-spectrum” antibodies in blood samples from SARS outbreak survivors in 2003, as I explained for the Deseret News.

Back in 2020, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered “the smallest biological molecule” that “completely and specifically neutralizes” the novel coronavirus, too, as I wrote for the Deseret News.

The scientists developed a drug, called Ab8, that would be used as a preventative measure against COVID-19, according to Fox News.

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