COVID SCIENCE-Vaccination after infection may curb long COVID; desktop 'air curtains' may deflect virus particles
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Post-infection vaccination may reduce long COVID
Vaccination after infection with SARS-CoV-2 may contribute to a reduction in the burden of long COVID symptoms, a new study suggests.
Researchers tracked 6,729 volunteers ages 18 to 69, who got
two shots of either AstraZeneca's (AZN) viral vector vaccine
or an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer (PFE)/BioNTech or
Moderna (MRNA) after recovering from an infection with the
coronavirus and who reported long COVID symptoms of any severity
at least once between February and
"Further research is required to evaluate the long-term relationship between vaccination and long COVID, in particular the impact of the Omicron variant," which emerged after this study ended, the researchers said.
Desktop "air curtains" may deflect virus particles
When people cannot maintain a safe distance to avoid the spread of COVID-19, a newly designed desktop "air curtain" can block aerosols in exhaled air, researchers found.
Air-curtains - artificially created streams of moving air -
are often used to protect patients in operating rooms. At Nagoya
University in
If further testing in real-life conditions confirms the effectiveness of the system, it could "be useful as an indirect barrier not only in the medical field but also in situations where sufficient physical distance cannot be maintained, such as at the reception counter," the researchers said.
Antacid aids in COVID-19 by helping limit inflammation
Researchers have discovered just how the antacid famotidine, commonly sold as Pepcid by a Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) unit, was able to help alleviate COVID-19 symptoms in clinical trials.
In studies in mice, they found that famotidine stimulates
the vagus nerve, which controls the immune system and other
involuntary body functions. When the vagus nerve is stimulated,
it can send out signals to suppress severe immune reactions -
so-called cytokine storms - in which high levels of inflammatory
proteins are released into the blood too quickly. When
famotidine was administered to the mice, it significantly
reduced levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood and spleen
and improved survival. But when the vagus nerve was cut,
famotidine no longer stopped the cytokine storms, according to a
report published on Monday in Molecular Medicine https://molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10020-022-00483-8.
The data "point to a role of the vagus nerve inflammatory
reflex in suppressing cytokine storm during COVID-19," coauthor
Dr.
Direct electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve is known to improve a variety of diseases. "Famotidine, a well-tolerated oral drug, could offer an additional method" of activating the vagus nerve to reduce inflammatory protein generation and resulting tissue damage in COVID-19 and other diseases, the researchers concluded.
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by