Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Post vaccination infection rare but possibly contagious; study refutes another anti-vax pregnancy claim

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Breakthrough infections rare, but potentially contagious

As of April 30, when roughly 101 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, “breakthrough” infections had been reported in 0.01% of them, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Tuesday. Roughly 27% of breakthrough infections were asymptomatic, while in 2% of cases, patients died. The CDC had genetic data for virus samples from 555 breakthrough infections. Mutated variants of the coronavirus, including those first seen in the UK and South Africa, accounted for 64% of the breakthroughs. In a separate study posted Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, researchers reported that among 20 fully-vaccinated healthcare workers with breakthrough COVID-19 cases, all were infected with variants. An earlier study had linked breakthrough infections with low viral loads, suggesting low transmission risks, but “we found many samples in our breakthrough cohort with high viral load,” said coauthor Pavitra Roychoudhury of the University of Washington. “Our work suggests that not all breakthrough infections are at low risk of initiating transmission and, if they did, these infections could lead to the continued spread of variants of concern, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.”

Study refutes anti-vaxxers’ pregnancy, breast milk claims

Unfounded claims by anti-vaccine activists that COVID-19 shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna will damage the placenta and contaminate breast milk have been refuted by new data. The vaccines deliver synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA), which instructs the body to make proteins that in turn induce antibodies to attack the coronavirus. Anti-vaxxers claim, with no evidence, that mRNA also induces antibodies that attack a protein called syncytin-1, which is important for the developing placenta during pregnancy. They also claim mRNA from the vaccines ends up in breast milk. When researchers studied blood samples from 15 women who received at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – including two pregnant women and five who were breastfeeding – they saw coronavirus antibodies but no antibodies against syncytin-1. None of the breastfeeding women had vaccine mRNA in their milk, according to a report posted Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. “This small study tells us that it is unlikely that COVID-19 mRNA vaccination will cause complications in pregnancy or fertility through cross-reacting antibodies against syncytin-1, or for breastfed infants through breast milk,” the authors said.

Vaccines appear safe for “long COVID” survivors

COVID-19 survivors with lingering symptoms can safely be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a small study suggests. Researchers tracked 36 individuals with “long COVID” who had been hospitalized while acutely ill and who later received at least one dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine. Eight months after admission to the hospital, and before vaccination, participants had at least one lingering symptom and half had at least four symptoms. Before vaccination, their quality-of-life was “markedly reduced” from normal, the researchers reported on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. One month after vaccination, 71% of their symptoms remained unchanged, 23% of their symptoms were improved, and 6% of symptoms had worsened. There was no significant worsening in quality-of-life or mental well-being, and outcomes were similar with both vaccines, researchers reported. The results may reassure people with persistent COVID-19 symptoms that the different types of vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca are “not associated with a decrease in quality of life or worsening of symptoms,” the researchers said.

Moderna says vaccine safe, effective in adolescents

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in a trial involving 3,732 adolescents aged 12-17, with no major safety problems, the company said on Tuesday. Among participants who received two doses, there were no cases of COVID-19 compared with four cases among those who received a placebo. After only one dose, the vaccine was 93% effective in this age group, Moderna said. Side effects were similar to those reported in earlier studies, including headache, fatigue, body aches and chills. Moderna plans to submit the findings to regulators for emergency use authorization in June. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday it is monitoring rare reports of mild heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents. The CDC said the condition is not occurring at higher rates than would be expected in the general population, so no causal link to the vaccine has been established. Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said even if vaccines turn out to be the cause, it is important to consider the risk-benefit ratio. “Vaccines are going to unequivocally be much more beneficial,” outweighing any low risk of myocarditis, he said.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Julie Steenhuysen and Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Villages in eastern India inundated as cyclone Yaas moves inland

By Jatindra Dash and Subrata NagChoudhury

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) -Storm surges inundated dozens of villages in eastern India on Wednesday after a powerful cyclone moved inland from the Bay of Bengal, damaging thousands of mud homes in two coastal states and killing at least one person, officials said.

Cyclone Yaas was packing gusts of up to 140 kph (87 mph) as it made landfall, days after another storm tore up the western coast, triggering mass evacuations and piling pressure on authorities battling a deadly second wave of the coronavirus.

Authorities said more than a million inhabitants had been moved out of the storm’s path and the busiest regional airport, in the city of Kolkata, had been shut until Wednesday evening.

In the eastern state of Odisha’s Balasore district, where the storm struck early on Wednesday, authorities said 46 villages along the coast had been flooded.

“Most of the villages were empty. The total population would be around 10,000,” K. Sudarshan Chakravarthy, the district’s top government official, told Reuters.

In neighboring West Bengal state, rising waters breached river embankments in more than 100 locations and 20,000 traditional mud homes had been damaged, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters.

“A large number of villages are under water,” she said.

At least one person had died in the state after a house collapsed, Banerjee said.

“I have not seen anything like this before,” said another state minister, Bankim Hazra, after seawater gushed into low-lying areas of Sagar island in the Bay of Bengal and the tourist town of Digha, where a police station was flooded.

“Successive high tides battered the coastline,” he added. “It is inundation all around and villages are cut off.”

Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are common at this time of year, and often roar ashore, bringing death and destruction to the coastal areas of both India and neighboring Bangladesh.

The devastating wave of virus infections complicated storm preparations. Odisha officials said they had suspended testing, vaccination and a door-to-door health survey in the three districts in the storm’s path.

Weather officials in Bangladesh said the storm was likely to swamp low-lying areas of 14 coastal districts, bringing tides three to four feet (0.91-1.22 meters) higher than normal. They advised fishing boats and trawlers to stay in shelter.

(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Heinrich)

Most capacity limits to end in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on May 19

(Reuters) -Most coronavirus capacity restrictions on businesses in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, including retail stores, food services and gyms, will end on May 19, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.

Cuomo said a steady decline in the positive rate of COVID-19 tests and hospitalizations across the state showed it was time to begin the reopening process. The percentage of New Yorkers testing positive for the coronavirus dropped 50% over the last month, and hospitalizations decreased by 37% during the same period, he told a news conference.

“New Yorkers have made tremendous progress,” Cuomo said. “It’s time to readjust the decision made on the science and on the data.”

Other businesses that will no longer be subject to state-imposed capacity restrictions are amusement parks, salons and offices. The governor also announced that the New York City subway will resume its 24-hour service beginning on May 17.

All businesses can still set their own capacity restrictions.

Certain protocols such as maintaining six feet of space between people will remain in place, Cuomo said, in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance. Exceptions can be made at venues where people will have shown proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, he said.

The May 19 reopening preempts the plan New York Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined just days ago to re-open his city fully on July 1. De Blasio said on Thursday that his city could soon return to normal thanks to the progress of the vaccine rollout, noting 6.4 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the city of more than 8 million residents.

New York’s move comes just over a year after businesses across the state closed down and limited capacity to combat one of the country’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks. It follows updated guidance released by the CDC last week, which said people do not need to wear masks outdoors where social distancing is possible.

Florida Governor Ron Desantis on Monday also announced he was signing an executive order that overruled and suspended all local COVID-19 emergency orders, saying that widespread vaccination made it safe to do so.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Evans)

India’s vaccinations plummet as coronavirus infections soar

By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s daily COVID-19 shots have fallen sharply from an all-time high reached early last month as domestic companies struggle to boost supplies and imports are limited, even as the country fights the world’s worst surge in infections.

Daily inoculations have averaged 2.5 million since hitting a peak of 4.5 million on April 5. A quadrupling of coronavirus cases during the period has collapsed the public health system in many regions of the country.

India, with the world’s biggest vaccine making capacity, has partially or fully immunized only 12% of its 1.35 billion people, according to data from the government’s Co-Win.

Public forecasts by its only two current vaccine producers show their total monthly output of 70-80 million doses would increase only in two months or more, though the number of people eligible for vaccines has doubled to an estimated 800 million since May 1.

India on Saturday received 150,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and the government said “millions of doses” more will come in.

Pfizer said on Monday it was in discussions with the Indian government seeking an “expedited approval pathway” for its vaccine.

“Unfortunately, our vaccine is not registered in India although our application was submitted months ago,” CEO Albert Bourla said.

“We are currently discussing with the Indian government an expedited approval pathway to make our Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available for use in the country.”

Pfizer was the first company to seek emergency use authorization for its vaccine in India late last year. It withdrew its application in February after the drugs regulator sought a small, local safety study for the shot before considering its request.

But as cases surged, India said last month it would fast-track approval for some foreign shots, with companies now required to do a local trial within 30 days of approval, not before.

GlobalData analyst Prashant Khadayate said Pfizer will become a “vaccine of choice among people who can afford it” but that its need to be stored in ultra-low temperatures would be a challenge.

India has also invited Johnson & Johnson and Moderna to sell their vaccines to the country.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Additional reporting by Manash Mishra; Editing by Tom Hogue and Nick Macfie)

Vaccine protects COVID-19 survivors against variants; virus’ spike protein damages blood vessels

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Vaccine protects COVID-19 survivors against variants

In COVID-19 survivors, the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine protects not only against the original virus strain but also against worrisome variants, two studies show. UK researchers analyzed immune responses after a single dose of the vaccine in 51 people, including 25 people previously infected with an early version of the novel coronavirus. Survivors showed enhanced antibody responses against the newer, more infectious variants first seen in the UK and South Africa, whereas people who had not previously been infected did not produce antibodies that could neutralize the variants, according to a report on Friday in Science. Separately, U.S researchers studied 30 people after two doses of the vaccine. Immune responses were 3.4 times better at neutralizing the coronavirus in the 10 COVID-19 survivors than in the 20 who were not previously infected, they reported on medRxiv on Thursday ahead of peer review. The difference was even greater when looking at neutralization of new variants from the UK, South Africa and Brazil, said coauthor Fikadu Tafesse of Oregon Health & Science University. “For example, the South African variant, which is the best at evading neutralizing antibodies, was 6.5 times better blocked,” or neutralized, in blood samples from people who were vaccinated after infection, he said. “Our findings give people another reason to go out and get vaccinated even if they have already had COVID-19.”

COVID-19 spike protein damages blood vessels

The “spike” proteins that the coronavirus uses to help it break into cells inflicts other damage as well, according to a new study that shines a spotlight on the many ways COVID-19 attacks organs other than the lungs. The spike proteins themselves cause direct damage to the cells that line the blood vessels, scientists found in test tube experiments using an engineered version of the spike and artery-lining cells obtained from mice. After attaching itself to the ACE2 protein on healthy cells, the spike disrupts signaling from ACE2 to the mitochondria – the cell’s energy-generating structures – causing the mitochondria to become damaged, researchers reported on Friday in Circulation Research. COVID-19 is really a disease of the blood vessels, coauthor Uri Manor of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California said in a statement. The new findings could help explain the blood clots associated with COVID-19. They could also explain “why some people have strokes, and why some people have issues in other parts of the body,” Manor said. “The commonality between them is that they all have vascular underpinnings.”

Cancer screenings in U.S. plummeted during pandemic

Nearly 10 million screenings for three common cancers were missed in the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study suggests. Researchers who compared monthly spring and summer screening rates in 2020 to rates in 2018 and 2019 found a 90.8% decline in breast cancer screening, a 79.3% decline in colorectal cancer screening and a 63.4% decline in prostate cancer screening just in the month of April 2020, researchers reported on Thursday in JAMA Oncology. “There was a deficit of 9.4 million in screening for the three major cancers across the United States that was most likely related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said coauthor Dr. Ronald Chen of the University of Kansas Cancer Center in Kansas City. “This is a deficit we have to make up for in 2021.” One bit of good news from the study: telehealth visits seemed to be associated with getting cancer screenings back on track. Healthcare teams that could reach patients through telehealth “were able to come up with a plan for screening,” Chen said. “This emphasizes the importance of telehealth and the importance of continuing it after the pandemic is over.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Linda Carroll; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Exclusive: India’s oxygen crisis to ease by mid-May, output to jump 25% – executive

By Shivani Singh and Devjyot Ghoshal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s severe medical oxygen supply crisis is expected to ease by mid-May, a top industry executive told Reuters, with output rising by 25% and transport infrastructure ready to cope with a surge in demand caused by a dramatic rise in coronavirus cases.

Dozens of hospitals in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai have run short of the gas this month, sending relatives of patients scrambling for oxygen cylinders, sometimes in vain.

Medical oxygen consumption in India has shot up more than eight-fold from usual levels to about 7,200 tonnes per day this month, said Moloy Banerjee of Linde Plc, the country’s biggest producer.

“This is what is causing the crisis because no one was prepared for it, particularly the steep curve up,” Banerjee, who heads the company’s South Asia gas business, told Reuters on Thursday.

Linde – whose two affiliates in the country are Linde India and Praxair India – and other suppliers are ramping up production to a total of more than 9,000 tonnes per day by the middle of next month, he said.

A logistics crisis impeding the speedy movement of oxygen from surplus regions in eastern India to hard-hit northern and western areas would also be resolved in the coming weeks as more distribution assets are deployed, Banerjee said.

“My expectation is that by the middle of May we will definitely have the transport infrastructure in place that allows us to service this demand across the country,” he said.

Banerjee said India was importing around 100 cryogenic containers to transport large quantities of liquid medical oxygen, with Linde providing 60 of those. Some are being flown in by Indian Air Force aircraft.

Many of these containers will be placed on dedicated trains that would cut across the country, each carrying between 80-160 tonnes of liquid oxygen and delivering to multiple cities.

The company is also looking to double the number of oxygen cylinders in its distribution network to at least 10,000, which would improve supply to rural areas with weak infrastructure.

“We are trying to create a hub-and-spoke type of system so that we make a lot of liquid oxygen available at the local area, from where the local dealers can pick it up,” Banerjee said.

India’s total COVID-19 cases passed 18 million on Thursday after another world record number of daily infections.

(Reporting by Shivani Singh and Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Giles Elgood)

France’s Macron charts way out of third COVID-19 lockdown

By Elizabeth Pineau

PARIS (Reuters) -France will start relaxing a nightly curfew and allow cafes, bars and restaurants to offer outside service from May 19, as President Emmanuel Macron charts a way out of a third COVID-19 lockdown.

Macron, who is under pressure from business groups and a COVID-weary public to open up the economy again, announced in an interview with the regional papers a four-phase plan for unwinding France’s month-long stay-at-home order.

The easing will come despite the numbers of new daily cases and COVID-19 patients being treated in intensive care being far higher than when the two previous lockdowns were rolled back. Macron said the vaccine rollout made this possible.

“I have never gambled on the health and safety of our citizens,” Macron said. “I take responsibility for the choices I make, but these are never bets.”

The plan envisages the nightly curfew being pushed back to 2100 from 1900 CET from May 19 and to 2300 from June 9, before being scrapped completely on June 30.

Museums, cinemas and theatres will also be allowed to reopen on May 19. Foreign tourists with a “health pass” will be allowed to visit France again from June 9, according to the timetable published by Ouest France and other newspapers.

The timetable is provisional and could be delayed on a region-by-region basis in areas where intensive care units are close to saturation or the COVID-19 incidence rate exceeds 400 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

‘EMERGENCY BRAKE’

“We will be able to pull an emergency brake in territories where the virus is too present,” Macron said.

The incidence rate in Paris and its surrounds was an average 459 per 100,000 people in the seven days up to April 25 and is falling, data showed. Ile de France is home to nearly a fifth of France’s population and accounts for 30% of economic activity.

About 22% of all French citizens have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a Reuters tracker.

Accelerating the rollout in France, Europe and in developing countries is paramount to push back against the virus, Macron said.

Opening up the vaccine to more people in France, Macron said COVID shots would be made available to all obese adults from May 1.

Macron said France could use a digital or paper-based ‘health pass’ to help curb the spread of the virus at events with large crowds such as sport stadia or festivals. But he said it would not be right to use them at everyday venues like restaurants or cinemas.

“A health pass will never be a right of access that differentiates the French,” the president said. “As it pertains to public liberties, parliament will debate the matter.”

France’s main COVID-19 indicators all showed some signs of improvement on Wednesday, with the seven-day moving average of daily new infections falling to 27,366 compared with 38,000 when the lockdown began.

France has recorded 5.57 million COVID-19 cases and 103,947 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Gareth Jones and Sonya Hepinstall)

German officials hope COVID-19 third wave has crested

By Emma Thomasson and Caroline Copley

BERLIN (Reuters) -A third wave of the coronavirus pandemic seems to have peaked in Germany and a record number of vaccinations should help turn the tide, although it is too soon to sound the all-clear as hospitals remain overloaded, health officials said on Thursday.

“The figures must not only stagnate, they must go down,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference, adding that a sustainable fall was a prerequisite for the lockdown to ease.

“Two to three days is not a trend. It is a good signal but what is decisive is to make a trend out of it,” he said, adding nearly 1.1 million people were vaccinated on Wednesday, more than 1% of the population and more than on any other day so far.

Germany’s seven-day average of coronavirus cases per 100,000 people fell on Thursday for the third day in a row to 155 – its lowest level in two weeks, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.

The incidence figure – a key metric used by the German government to determine when to tighten or ease lockdowns – hit 169 on Monday, but has fallen each day since then. The last time it was under 160 was on April 14, when the incidence was 153.

RKI President Lothar Wieler cautioned that the pandemic would not be over until it was under control around the world, noting that global cases had risen 24% in the last week.

LOCKDOWNS

New legislation enables the federal government to impose curfews from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. in areas where cases exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days. The rules also include stricter limits on private gatherings and shopping.

Schools will have to close and return to online lessons if cases reach 165 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.

If the European Union’s watchdog approves COVID-19 vaccines for children, Germany will be able to vaccinate under 12-year-olds during the summer holidays at the latest, Spahn said.

The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 24,736 on Thursday – almost 5,000 fewer than those recorded a week ago – bringing Germany’s total caseload since the start of the pandemic to 3,357,268.

The total COVID-19 death toll rose by 264 to 82,544.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson, Caroline Copley, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Gareth Jones)

India infections top 18 million as gravediggers work round the clock

By Alasdair Pal and Francis Mascarenhas

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) -India’s total COVID-19 cases passed 18 million on Thursday after another world record number of daily infections, as gravediggers worked around the clock to bury victims and hundreds more were cremated in makeshift pyres in parks and parking lots.

India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday, health ministry data showed, the highest number of fatalities in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

The world’s second most populous nation is in deep crisis, with hospitals and morgues overwhelmed.

Mumbai gravedigger Sayyed Munir Kamruddin, 52, said he and his colleagues were working non-stop to bury victims.

“I’m not scared of COVID, I’ve worked with courage. It’s all about courage, not about fear,” he said. “This is our only job. Getting the body, removing it from the ambulance, and then burying it.”

Each day, thousands of Indians search frantically for hospital beds and life-saving oxygen for sick relatives, using social media apps and personal contacts. Hospital beds that become available, especially in intensive care units (ICUs), are snapped up in minutes.

“The ferocity of the second wave took everyone by surprise,” K. Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific adviser to the government, was quoted as saying in the Indian Express newspaper.

“While we were all aware of second waves in other countries, we had vaccines at hand, and no indications from modelling exercises suggested the scale of the surge.”

India’s military has begun moving key supplies, such as oxygen, across the nation and will open its healthcare facilities to civilians.

Hotels and railway coaches have been converted into critical care facilities to make up for the shortage of hospital beds.

India’s best hope is to vaccinate its vast population, experts say, and on Wednesday it opened registration for all above the age of 18 to receive shots from Saturday.

But although it is the world’s biggest producer of vaccines, India does not have the stocks for the estimated 800 million now eligible.

Many who tried to sign up for vaccination said they failed, complaining on social media of being unable to get a slot or even to simply get on the website, as it repeatedly crashed.

“Statistics indicate that far from crashing or performing slowly, the system is performing without any glitches,” the government said on Wednesday.

More than 8 million people had registered, it said, but it was not immediately clear how many had got slots.

A local official in Mumbai said the city had paused its vaccination drive for three days as supplies were running short, while officials said the worst-hit state of Maharashtra was likely to extend strict coronavirus curbs by another two weeks.

DEATHS LIKELY UNDER-REPORTED

Only about 9% of India’s population of about 1.4 billion has received a dose since the vaccination campaign began in January.

However, while the second wave overwhelms the health system, the official death rate is below that of Brazil and the United States.

India has reported 147.2 deaths per million, the Reuters global COVID-19 tracker shows, while Brazil and the United States reported figures of 1,800 and 1,700 respectively.

However, medical experts believe India’s true COVID-19 numbers may be five to 10 times greater than the official tally.

At Delhi’s Holy Family Hospital, patients arrived in ambulances and private vehicles, some gasping for air as their oxygen cylinders ran out. In the ICU, patients lay on trolleys between beds.

“Someone that should be in the ICU is being treated in the wards,” Dr. Sumit Ray, head of the unit, told Reuters.

“We are completely full. The doctors and nurses are demoralized, they know they can do better, but they just don’t have the time. No one takes a break.”

The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory on Wednesday against travel to India because of the pandemic and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticized for allowing massive political rallies and religious festivals which have been super-spreader events in recent weeks.

“The people of this country are entitled to a full and honest account of what led more than a billion people into a catastrophe,” Vikram Patel, a global health expert at Harvard Medical School, said in the Hindu newspaper.

AID STARTS ARRIVING

India expects close to 550 oxygen generating facilities from around the world as medical aid starts pouring in, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Thursday.

Two planes from Russia, carrying 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors, and 22 tonnes of medicine, have arrived in Delhi.

The United States is sending supplies worth more than $100 million, including 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests, the White House said on Wednesday.

The supplies will begin arriving on Thursday, it added.

The United States also has redirected its own order of AstraZeneca manufacturing supplies to India, to allow it to make more than 20 million doses, the White House said.

India will receive a first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine on May 1. Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, which markets Sputnik V globally, has signed deals with five Indian manufacturers for more than 850 million vaccine doses a year.

Bangladesh said it would send about 10,000 vials of anti-viral medicines, 30,000 PPE kits, and several thousand mineral and vitamin tablets.

Germany will send 120 ventilators on Saturday, and a mobile oxygen production facility next week, its defense ministry said.

(Additional reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai, Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru, Neha Arora and Tanvi Mehta in Delhi, Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Subrata Nag Choudhury in Kolkata; Writing by Michael Perry and Giles Elgood; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Gareth Jones)

Placental infection may be more likely early in pregnancy; COVID-19 may cause heart failure in some patients

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Placental infection may be more likely in early pregnancy

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 rarely infects the placenta, but new research suggests that when such an infection does occur it is more likely to happen early in pregnancy. Analyzing 12 placentas from healthy women, ranging in gestational age from 5 weeks to 36 weeks, researchers found that the cells in the placenta that become infected with the coronavirus have the surface protein ACE2, which the virus uses as a gateway for entry. Late in pregnancy, the ACE2 proteins are positioned on cells in a way that does not expose them to the virus circulating in the mother’s blood, possibly protecting the placenta from infection, said study coauthor Dr. Drucilla Roberts of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This “protective” positioning pattern was less often seen in early gestation placentas, when ACE2 was typically present over the entire cell circumference, the study found. That suggests “increased vulnerability of the early placenta to infection,” Roberts said. “As more pregnant women recover from first trimester SARS-CoV-2 infection, it is important to remain vigilant to possible placental infection” and transmission from mother to fetus, the researchers said in a report published in Journal of Infectious Diseases. How often that happens, and effects on the fetus and newborn remain unknown, they added.

COVID-19 patients face low risk of new heart failure

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 may develop heart failure even if they do not have a previous history of heart disease or cardiovascular risk factors, although the risk is low, according to a study published on Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Among 6,439 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, doctors found 37 patients (0.6%) with no history of heart failure who developed new cases during their hospitalization – including eight in their 40’s, on average, who had no previous cardiovascular disease or risk factors. It is not clear yet whether new-onset heart failure in these patients is an indirect effect of critical illness or a direct effect of the virus invading the heart, said study coauthor Dr. Anu Lala of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, in a statement. “Importantly,” she added, “though symptoms of heart failure – particularly shortness of breath – can mimic symptoms associated with COVID-19, being alerted to the findings of this study may prompt clinicians to monitor for signs of congestion more consistent with heart failure than COVID-19 alone.”

Hepatitis C drugs work synergistically with remdesivir

Combining Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir – the current standard of care for hospitalized COVID-19 patients – with oral drugs used to treat hepatitis C virus (HCV) might be more effective than remdesivir alone, laboratory experiments suggest. Four HCV drugs that work synergistically with remdesivir “are especially interesting,” said Gaetano Montelione of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. In test tube experiments, these HCV drugs increased remdesivir’s antiviral activity as much as 10-fold, his team reported on Monday in Cell Reports. The drugs – simeprevir, grazoprevir, paritaprevir, and vaniprevir – inhibit a protein in the coronavirus called PLpro, while remdesivir, which is given intravenously, targets viral polymerase proteins. Drug companies are developing oral drugs that target the same viral proteins as remdesivir. If those become available, Montelione said, it may be possible to offer them in combination with a hepatitis C drug for use at home, before COVID-19 patients become so ill that they need to be hospitalized. “So far all of the research has been performed in cells,” he noted, “and this approach must undergo further testing, perhaps first in animals, and then in clinical trials.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)