corona virus Tag
21 Apr COVID-19: Low Sensitivity of Rapid Point-of-Care Testing in a Community Setting
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53956" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Döhla[/caption]
Dr. med. Manuel Döhla
Associate Researcher, AG "One Health"
Institute for Hygiene and Public Health
Medical Faculty, University of Bonn
Bonn, Germany
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Rapid and reliable testing of suspected cases is an important measure in the fight against the corona pandemic. In PCR diagnostics, 24 hours and sometimes more elapse between testing and notification of the test result. During this period, suspect cases must be isolated pre-emptively so that they do not cause further transmission. This is logistically and personnel-intensive and highly error-prone.
The shorter the time between test and result, the more effective containment measures can be. This is why the test we have evaluated, which shows a result within 20 minutes, has aroused our interest. The manufacturer's specifications (sensitivity 70 % in early stage disease (day 4-10), 100 % in late stage disease (day 11-24), specificity 100 %) were promising.
02 Apr Texas Biomed Launches Multi-Species Study to Accelerate COVID-19 Drug Testing
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53752" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Schlesinger[/caption]
Dr. Larry Schlesinger MD
Professor, President and CEO
Texas Biomed
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background and mission of Texas Biomed?
Response: Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) is a not-for-profit, independent research institute with a strong history of pioneering, biomedical breakthroughs that have contributed to the world of science and human health for nearly 80 years. The Texas Biomed mission is to pioneer and share scientific breakthroughs that protect you, your families and our global community from the threat of infectious diseases. Texas Biomed is capitalizing on its strengths – outstanding collaborative scientists and unique assets and resources. Texas Biomed is home to the nation’s only privately-owned BSL4 facility, five fully outfitted BSL3 facilities with the latest technologies and the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC). The Institute focuses on a core understanding of the basic biology of infectious diseases, animal model development, and studies to move therapies and vaccines to human clinical trials. The Institute’s independent, nonprofit business model moves science from the bench to clinical trials faster and with less bureaucracy.
02 Apr Data-Driven AI May Help Predict Severity of Coronavirus
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Anasse Bari PhD Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science Department, New York University, New York, and Megan Coffee MD PhD Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Department of Medicine New York University, Department of Population and Family Health Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Coffee and Bari: This work is led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in partnership with Wenzhou Central Hospital and Cangnan People's Hospital, both in Wenzhou, China. This is a multi-disciplinary team with backgrounds in clinical infectious disease as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science. There is a critical need to better understand COVID-19. Doctors learn from collective and individual clinical experiences. Here, no clinician has years of experience. All are learning as they go, having to make important decisions about clinical management with stretched resources. The goal here is to augment clinical learning with machine learning. In particular, the goal is to allow clinicians to identify early who from the many infected will need close medical attention. Most patients will first develop mild symptoms, yet some 5-8 days later will develop critical illness. It is hard to know who these people are who will need to be admitted and may need to be intubated until they become ill. Knowing this earlier would allow more attention and resources to be spent on those patients with worse prognoses. If there were ever treatments in the future that could be used early in the course of illness, it would be important to identify who would most benefit We present in this study a first step in building an artificial intelligence (AI) framework, with predictive analytics (PA) capabilities applied to real patient data, to provide rapid clinical decision-making support. It is at this point a proof of concept that it could be possible to identify future severity based on initial presentation in COVID-19.
02 Apr COVID-19: Early Antiviral Treatment Linked To Reduced Severity and Improved Prognosis
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53735" align="alignleft" width="161"]
Dr. Hongcui Cao[/caption]
Hongcui Cao, M.D.
State Key Laboratory for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases
National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases
The First Affiliated Hospital
College of Medicine, Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, China
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The proportion of severe novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases has dropped significantly. Specifically, this number has decreased from 32.4% on January 28 to 21.6% in Wuhan and to 7.2% in other provinces of China on February. Measures such as strengthened medical support and centralized isolation greatly contributed to the improved circumstances, and laid a solid foundation for further enhancing the cure rate and reducing the mortality rate. However, there are still hundreds of severe patients dying every day. It is extremely important to make timely and efficient diagnosis and initiate treatment for severe patients.
28 Mar NEJM: Trial of Lopinavir–Ritonavir in Adults Hospitalized with Severe Covid-19 Infection
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53025" align="alignleft" width="205"]
Dr. Bin Cao[/caption]
Bin Cao, Yeming Wang, Guohui Fan,
Lianghan Shang, Jiuyang Xu, DingyuZhang, Chen Wang
on behalf of LOTUS-China Study Group
China-Japan Friendship Hospital; Wuhan Jintinyan Hospital;
Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Science
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: In the past two months, the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading rapidly across the world. Science and technology is the most powerful weapon for human to fight against diseases, especially in such a pandemic setting. Seeking for effective antiviral medication is the most critical and urgent among the many scientific tasks in the pandemic.
At the most critical moment in the fight against COVID-19, Chinese clinical scientists have stepped forward under extremely difficult research conditions to carry out clinical trials in antiviral treatment including lopinavir–ritonavir and remdesivir, in a swift, decisive and effective manner. These trials have attracted worldwide attention.
Recently, the Lopinavir–ritonavir Trial for suppression of SARS-CoV-2 in China (LOTUS-China) has been completed, which, with great clinical significance, can provide strong evidence for the treatment of COVID-19 both in China and around the world.
28 Mar FDA Approves 5 Minute COVID-19 Detection Test
Abbott Labs gains FDA approval for 5 minute coronavirus detection test....
27 Mar Potential Increased Risk of COVID-19 to Lung Cancer Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_53664" align="alignleft" width="183"] Dr. Moore[/caption]
Dr. Amy C. Moore PhD
Director of Science and Research
GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer
MedicalResearch.com: What is the mission of the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer?
Response: GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer’s mission is to transform survivorship by saving, extending, and improving the lives of those vulnerable, at risk, and diagnosed with lung cancer.