Covid-19 FAQ's

May 7, 2022May 7, 2022

Researchers identify a promising drug for treating serious COVID-19 complication in children

Press release:

Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have identified a promising drug candidate for the treatment of multi-inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), they report in Clinical Care Explorations. MIS-C is a rare but severe and potentially life-threatening condition that usually develops in children weeks to months after they have experienced a mild or even asymptomatic case of COVID-19.

MIS-C occurs mainly in children and leads to high fevers and a hyperinflammatory response that can affect multiple organs, including the heart, brain and gastrointestinal organs. Symptoms include stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness and rash. Fifty-five of the 6,431 children diagnosed with MIS-C have died since May 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

April 10, 2022April 10, 2022

Study finds COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy does not increase complications around the time of childbirth

Press Release:

Researchers have found that receiving a COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy does not lead to increases in the frequency of complications around the time of childbirth. The findings, which are published in JAMA, provide further assurances about the safety of mRNA vaccines for this particularly unique population.

Lead author Dr. Deshayne Fell led the study of nearly 100,000 pregnancies by analyzing data from BORN Ontario (Ontario’s provincial birth registry), which is linked to the province’s COVID-19 immunization database.

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021

Ivermectin treatment in humans for COVID-19

Press release:

Researchers from the CEOsys project (link is external) collaborated with the LSTM-based Cochrane Infectious Disease Group (CIDG(link is external)) to carry out a systematic review, published today in the Cochrane Library(link is external), to explore the effects of ivermectin in preventing and treating COVID-19 infection.

The review authors included 14 randomized controlled trials with 1678 participants. Treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 patients was investigated in 13 studies comparing ivermectin with placebo or with no treatment in addition to comparable usual care in the study arms. Only one study investigated prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection and compared ivermectin to no treatment. The review looked at the effects of ivermectin on the number of deaths, whether the patient’s condition worsened or improved, and unwanted effects.

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021

Merck and Ridgeback’s Investigational Oral Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduced the Risk of Hospitalization or Death by Approximately 50 Percent Compared to Placebo for Patients with Mild or Moderate COVID-19 in Positive Interim Analysis of Phase 3 Study

Press release:

KENILWORTH, N.J. & MIAMI–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics today announced that molnupiravir (MK-4482, EIDD-2801), an investigational oral antiviral medicine, significantly reduced the risk of hospitalization or death at a planned interim analysis of the Phase 3 MOVe-OUT trial in at risk, non-hospitalized adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. At the interim analysis, molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by approximately 50%; 7.3% of patients who received molnupiravir were either hospitalized or died through Day 29 following randomization (28/385), compared with 14.1% of placebo-treated patients (53/377); p=0.0012. Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to 8 deaths in patients who received placebo. At the recommendation of an independent Data Monitoring Committee and in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recruitment into the study is being stopped early due to these positive results. Merck plans to submit an application for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the U.S. FDA as soon as possible based on these findings and plans to submit marketing applications to other regulatory bodies worldwide.

September 3, 2021October 2, 2021

No serious health effects linked to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines

Press release:

Federal and Kaiser Permanente researchers combing the health records of 6.2 million patients found no serious health effects that could be linked to the 2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

The study published September 2 in JAMA reports the first comprehensive findings of the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), which studies patient records for 12 million people in 5 Kaiser Permanente service regions along with HealthPartners in Minneapolis, the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, and Denver Health. The work is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“These results from our safety surveillance are reassuring,” said lead author Nicola Klein, MD, PhD, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center and principal investigator of the Vaccine Safety Datalink’s COVID-19 rapid cycle analysis.

July 13, 2021July 13, 2021

One shot of the Sputnik V vaccine triggers strong antibody responses

Press release:

A single dose of the Sputnik V vaccine may elicit significant antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2, finds a study published July 13 in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

“Due to limited vaccine supply and uneven vaccine distribution in many regions of the world, health authorities urgently need data on the immune response to vaccines to optimize vaccination strategies,” says senior author Andrea Gamarnik (@GamarnikLab) of the Fundación Instituto Leloir-CONICET in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “The peer-reviewed data we present provide information for guiding public health decisions in light of the current global health emergency.”

Past research has shown that two doses of Sputnik V results in 92% efficacy against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by SARS-CoV-2. An important question is whether a single dose would achieve greater public health benefit than two doses by allowing protection of a larger population more quickly.

June 29, 2021June 29, 2021

Blood clots related to AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine can be mitigated with early detection

Press Release:

New research has shown that early testing for blood clots in patients who had received the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine led to them being treated successfully, highlighting the need for heightened awareness of the risk among doctors.

The work, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and the National Coagulation Centre at St James’s Hospital, is published in the British Journal of Haematology.

June 23, 2021June 23, 2021

Long COVID symptoms likely caused by Epstein-Barr virus reactivation

Press release:

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) reactivation resulting from the inflammatory response to coronavirus infection may be the cause of previously unexplained long COVID symptoms — such as fatigue, brain fog, and rashes — that occur in approximately 30% of patients after recovery from initial COVID-19 infection. The first evidence linking EBV reactivation to long COVID, as well as an analysis of long COVID prevalence, is outlined in a new long COVID study published in the journal Pathogens.

“We ran EBV antibody tests on recovered COVID-19 patients, comparing EBV reactivation rates of those with long COVID symptoms to those without long COVID symptoms,” said lead study author Jeffrey E. Gold of World Organization. “The majority of those with long COVID symptoms were positive for EBV reactivation, yet only 10% of controls indicated reactivation.”

June 15, 2021June 15, 2021

COVID-19 reinfection rate less than 1% for those with severe illness

Press Release:

A review of more than 9,000 U.S. patients with severe COVID-19 infection showed less than 1% contracted the illness again, with an average reinfection time of 3.5 months after an initial positive test. Those are the findings from a study conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and MU Health Care.

The researchers teamed up with the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics and the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation to review data from 62 U.S. health care facilities. They found 63 of the 9,119 patients (0.7%) with severe COVID-19 infection contracted the virus a second time, with a mean reinfection period of 116 days. Of the 63 who were reinfected, two (3.2%) died. Patients categorized as non-white were at greater risk of reinfection than white patients.

June 4, 2021June 4, 2021

Vitamin D may not protect against COVID-19, as previously suggested

Press release:

While previous research early in the pandemic suggested that vitamin D cuts the risk of contracting COVID-19, a new study from McGill University finds there is no genetic evidence that the vitamin works as a protective measure against the coronavirus.

“Vitamin D supplementation as a public health measure to improve outcomes is not supported by this study. Most importantly, our results suggest that investment in other therapeutic or preventative avenues should be prioritized for COVID-19 randomized clinical trials,” say the authors.

To assess the relationship between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 susceptibility and severity, the researchers conducted a Mendelian randomization study using genetic variants strongly associated with increased vitamin D levels. They looked at genetic variants of 14,134 individuals with COVID-19 and over 1.2 million individuals without the disease from 11 countries.