SARS-CoV-2 tagged posts

New research helps explain why young children have lower rates of severe COVID-19 than adults. A study of infants and young children found those who acquired SARS-CoV-2 had a strong, sustained antibody response to the virus and high levels of inflammatory proteins in the nose but not in the blood. This immune response contrasts with that typically seen in adults with SARS-CoV-2 infection. The research was published in the journal Cell.

The investigation involved 81 full-term infants and young children whose mothers enrolled in a NIAID-supported cohort study at Cincinnati Children’s during their third trimester of pregnancy. The study team trained mothers to collect weekly nasal swabs from their infants starting when the babies were 2 weeks old...

Unexpected new insights into how COVID-19 infects ce...

An experimental “decoy” has provided long-term protection from infection by the pandemic virus in mice, a new study finds. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the work is based on how the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, uses its spike protein to attach to a protein on the surface of the cells that line human lungs. Once attached to this cell surface protein, called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the virus spike pulls the cell close, enabling the virus to enter the cell and hijack its machinery to make viral copies.

Earlier in the pandemic, pharmaceutical companies designed monoclonal antibodies to glom onto the spike and neutralize the virus. Treatment of patients soon after infection was successful in preventing hospitalization and death...

COVID-19, the disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection, is associated with highly variable clinical outcomes that range from asymptomatic disease to death. For those with milder infections, COVID-19 can produce respiratory infection symptoms (cough, congestion, fever) and sensory phenotypes such as headache and loss of sense of smell.

In more severe cases, SARS-CoV-2 infection can affect nearly every organ and result in strokes from vascular occlusion, cardiovascular damage and acute renal failure. A substantial number of actively infected patients suffering from both mild and severe infections experience sensory-related symptoms, such as headache, visceral pain, Guillain-Barre syndrome, nerve pain and inflammation...