Poor staff vaccination linked to COVID deaths in retirement homes; an experimental vaccine targets several coronaviruses

Retirement home worker receives AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at health center as South Korea launches coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination campaign in Seoul, South Korea, on February 26, 2021. REUTERS / Heo Ran

December 10 (Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the results and that has not yet been peer-certified.

Staff vaccination rates linked to COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes

Low COVID-19 vaccination rates among nursing home staff are linked to high rates of coronavirus disease and death among residents, even when residents have been vaccinated, according to a US study.

Using national data from early June to late August 2021, researchers compared nursing homes with the highest and lowest percentages of staff vaccinated. In communities with high rates of COVID-19, homes with the lowest staff vaccination rates had more than twice as many residents developing COVID-19, and nearly three times as many residents died from it. This was true regardless of vaccination rates among residents and other differences between facilities, the researchers reported on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers estimated that if by mid-June all nursing homes had achieved the most vaccinated facility staff immunization rates – around 80% on average – then over the next 10 weeks there could have been 7 501 fewer COVID-19 cases among staff, 4,775 fewer resident cases and 703 fewer resident deaths from the virus. The results “strongly suggest that highly vaccinated staff are essential” to protect nursing home residents from COVID-19, said study leader Brian McGarry of the University of Rochester in New York City.

New type of vaccine targets several coronaviruses

A new type of vaccine being developed by the US military will protect not only against the virus and its variants responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also against other respiratory viruses, the researchers hope.

Their “spike ferritin nanoparticle” (SpFN) vaccine uses the common protein ferritin in the shape of a soccer ball-shaped “platform”. The platform has 24 “faces” on which are attached replicas of advanced proteins used by certain viruses, including coronaviruses, to enter cells. The administration of replica spikes via vaccines teaches the immune system to recognize them and to attack them if infected. The results of the first completed human vaccine trial are being analyzed.

In laboratory experiments, the antibodies induced by the vaccine protected mice from what would otherwise have been lethal doses of the virus that causes COVID-19 and also the virus that caused the SARS epidemic in 2003, have said researchers on Tuesday in cell reports. “Presenting multiple copies of the tip in an orderly fashion may be the key to inducing a powerful and broad immune response,” said study leader Gordon Joyce of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The vaccine would remain stable over a wide range of temperatures, he said, making it particularly useful in areas without specialized storage equipment.

Antibodies to the common cold may interfere with the defense against SARS-CoV-2

Antibodies to cold viruses, collectively known as hCoV, can interfere with the body’s response to SARS-CoV-2, new data show. Previous studies disagreed on whether previously acquired hCoV antibodies protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

“A major factor contributing to the discrepancies (…) is that they have not been able to examine the level of anti-hCoV antibodies in the same individual before and after infection,” said Maureen McGargill at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. By comparing before and after blood samples from people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, his team found that infection with SARS-CoV-2 caused hCoV antibody levels to increase, indicating that in to some extent, viruses seemed similar to immunity. system. But when they compared 121 people who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 1,081 who did not, they found that higher baseline levels of anti-hCoV antibodies did not protect against SARS-CoV-2. Instead, they reported Monday in Cell Host Microbe, higher baseline levels of anti-hCoV antibodies were associated with higher levels of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which are a sign of more severe COVID-19.

Mice whose immune systems had been primed to generate antibodies to attack cold viruses seemed less able to generate antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2, the researchers also found. The results suggest that anti-hCoV antibodies alter the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2, possibly due to the strengthening of antibodies that cross-react with SARS-CoV-2 but do not neutralize it, McGargill said.

Click for a Reuters chart on vaccines in development.

Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.