The most widely used approach to testing for COVID-19 requires a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which involves taking a swab of the back of the throat and far inside the nose. In a paper published by Lancet E Clinical Medicine, chemists from Surrey teamed up with Frimley NHS Trust and the Universities of Manchester [...]
The cobas SARS-CoV-2 Variant Set 1 Test is designed to detect key spike mutations in virus variants associated with increased human-to-human transmission Accurate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 mutations can help assess the spread of circulating variants and monitor their potential impact on therapeutics, vaccines and public health interventions Periodic assessments against emerging variants [...]
Among all the manifestations and complications of COVID-19, yet another puzzling question is emerging — is the virus triggering cases of diabetes? Like many doctors around the world, Dr. Mihail Zilbermint began noticing something strange midway in the pandemic. More and more people seemed to be suddenly developing diabetes. “My team usually manage about [...]
A drug containing a lab-produced ‘antibody’ reduces hospital admission or death from Covid-19 by 85 per cent, its maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced. VIR-7813, created by GSK and Vir Biotechnology, is a new treatment for those with mild to moderate illness. However, a trial using the drug on very sick patients was halted last week due to a [...]
A new Covid-19 vaccine soon to be approved in Australia appears to be even better than all others on offer, with new data showing it could prevent all deaths from the virus. Trial data from the UK shows the Novavax jab stops 96 per cent of infections and 100 per cent of serious illness and [...]
The Pfizer vaccine may be effective against the Brazil, UK and South Africa coronavirus variants, a new study suggests. The research also indicates the Pfizer vaccine generated an antibody response against the variants when tested in a laboratory against an engineered version of the virus, with blood samples taken from 15 people who had received the jab. [...]
The virus swept through a nursery school and an adjacent elementary school in the Milan suburb of Bollate with amazing speed. In a matter of just days, 45 children and 14 staff members had tested positive. Genetic analysis confirmed what officials already suspected: The highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in England was racing [...]
A research review led by Oxford Brookes University has found a large proportion of COVID-19 survivors will be affected by neuropsychiatric and cognitive complications. Psychologists at Oxford Brookes University and a psychiatrist from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, evaluated published research papers in order to understand more about the possible effects of the SARS-COV-2 [...]
A safe, fast and cheap testing method that uses magnetic nanoparticles to detect viruses in both clinical and wastewater samples has been developed by KAUST researchers. The centrifuge-free approach is compatible with magnetic bead-based automated systems that are already used to process hundreds of samples. "Our silica magnetic nanoparticle-based workflow can be assembled from [...]
The COVID-19 virus holds some mysteries. Scientists remain in the dark on aspects of how it fuses and enters the host cell; how it assembles itself; and how it buds off the host cell. Computational modeling combined with experimental data provides insights into these behaviors. But modeling over meaningful timescales of the pandemic-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus [...]
