Health Highlights: May 27, 2021-Consumer Health News

COVID-19 vaccine may provide protection over the years: study

Two new studies suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine may provide protection to people previously exposed to the virus for at least a year, and in some cases for life.

Both examined people who were exposed to the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, about a year ago. New York Times report.

According to a study published in the journal, cells that remember the virus can survive in the bone marrow and produce antibodies whenever needed. Nature..

Other studies have found that these Memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least 12 months after being first infected with the coronavirus.Posted online on biology research site BioRxiv..

Taken together, the findings suggest that most people who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection and were later vaccinated do not need booster shots. Times Said.

However, uninfected vaccinated people may need booster shots. Others have been infected but have not shown a strong immune response to the virus.

“These papers are consistent with increasing literature suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination-induced immunity appear to be long-lived,” said an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Scott Hensley studied Times..

According to Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, memory B cells produced in response to a coronavirus infection and boosted by the vaccine are so powerful that even mutants of the virus can be repelled. Eliminate the need for boosters. Led one of the studies.

“People who are infected and vaccinated continue to evolve their antibodies, so they have a really great response, a great set of antibodies,” said Nussenzweig. Times.. “I expect them to last for a long time.”

Scientists say they have found a rare cause of blood clots associated with some COVID vaccines

Researchers report that a rare cause of blood clots was found in some people who received the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

The vaccine uses an adenoviral vector (a common cold virus) to transfer the components of the vaccine into cells, but some substances slip into the nucleus of the cell. This is not an ideal place for viruses to make proteins, German scientists explained. Washington post report.

According to a peer-reviewed study posted online, these inferior proteins can divide in the body and cause blood clots in a small number of vaccinated people.

The Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine also uses the adenovirus vector. Position report.

COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA technologies such as Pfizer and Modana work differently and “should represent a safe product,” the study said.

Rolf Marschalek, one of the authors of the study, Financial Times The adenovirus vector vaccine can be fine-tuned to eliminate the risk of blood clots, and Johnson & Johnson said, “We are currently trying to optimize the vaccine.” Position report.

Relaxing restrictions on the use of embryos in research

International standards that limit the length of time human embryos can grow in the laboratory are extended under limited conditions, removing barriers to stem cell research.

However, the International Stem Cell Research Association did not specify how long embryos could grow beyond the 14-day limit specified in the 2016 guidelines. Associated Press report.

According to Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at the Crick Institute in London and chair of the group that developed the new guidelines, this limitation prevents studies during significant periods of embryogenesis, usually 14-28 days. I will.

“I think there are a lot of birth defects very early in this period,” says Ravel Badge. AP report. “A better understanding of these early stages may allow us to adopt simple steps to reduce the amount of suffering.”

However, not everyone is happy with the new guidelines, and some are worried that human embryos could grow at higher stages in the lab.

Marcy Darnovsky, Secretary-General of the Center for Genetics and Society, said: AP It is difficult to find the scientific justification for the new guidelines.

“Can we really tell you something meaningful about miscarriage or embryonic development when the embryo is in an extracorporeal Petri dish?” She said.

Darnovsky was also worried that the guidelines did not impose limits on the period during which human embryos could potentially grow.

New guidelines prohibit the cloning of humans, the transplantation of human embryos into the uterus of animals, and the creation of human-animal chimeras, and such studies are “scientifically unfounded or ethically concerned. Has been done. “

U.S. intelligence agencies have announced a “doubling” effort to identify the source of COVID-19

US intelligence was told to “double” efforts to learn the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

According to the move, the move was prompted by a new report asking if the new coronavirus had occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Veterans Affairs in China. CBS News..

According to Biden, the intelligence community has 90 days to “gather and analyze information that could lead to definitive conclusions” about how the pandemic began.

“As of today, the US intelligence community has” summarized two possible scenarios, “but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” he said. CBS News report.

“The current position is as follows.” Two elements of the IC are leaning towards the former scenario and one leaning towards the latter. The reliability of each is low or moderate, but the majority of factors do not believe that there is enough information to evaluate one. It’s more likely than others. “