Articles: covid-19.
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Frontiers in immunology · Jan 2020
ReviewMitigating Coronavirus Induced Dysfunctional Immunity for At-Risk Populations in COVID-19: Trained Immunity, BCG and "New Old Friends".
The novel, highly contagious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spreads rapidly throughout the world, leading to a deadly pandemic of a predominantly respiratory illness called COVID-19. Safe and effective anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are urgently needed. ⋯ Animal data from earlier coronavirus vaccine efforts indicate that elderly people, most at risk from severe COVID-19 disease, could be especially at risk from immunopathologic responses to novel coronavirus vaccines. Bacterial "new old friends" such as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) or Mycobacterium obuense have the ability to elevate basal systemic levels of type 1 cytokines and immune cells, correlating with increased protection against diverse and unrelated infectious agents, called "trained immunity." Here we describe dysfunctional immune responses induced by coronaviruses, representing potentially difficult to overcome obstacles to safe, effective vaccine development for COVID-19, and outline how trained immunity could help protect high risk populations through immunomodulation with BCG and other "new old friends."
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Neuroimmunomodulation · Jan 2020
ReviewHyperinflammation and Immune Response Generation in COVID-19.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected millions of people worldwide. The pathophysiology of this virus is not very clearly known, thus, enormous efforts are being made by the scientific community to delineate its evading mechanism. ⋯ The inflammatory response generated after infection by increased proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, and complement proteins activation may likely contribute to disease severity. We also discussed the other factors that may affect immunity and could be important comorbidities in the disease severity and outcome.
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Frontiers in microbiology · Jan 2020
ReviewTherapeutic Strategies Against COVID-19 and Structural Characterization of SARS-CoV-2: A Review.
The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, or 2019-nCoV, which originated in Wuhan, Hubei province, China in December 2019, is a grave threat to public health worldwide. A total of 3,672,238 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 254,045 deaths were reported globally up to May 7, 2020. However, approved antiviral agents for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 remain unavailable. ⋯ A combination of repurposed drugs can improve the efficacy of treatment, and structure-based drug design can be employed to specifically target SARS-CoV-2. This review discusses therapeutic strategies using promising antiviral agents against SARS-CoV-2. In addition, structural characterization of potentially therapeutic viral or host cellular targets associated with COVID-19 have been discussed to refine structure-based drug design strategies.
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New York City (NYC) bore the greatest burden of COVID-19 in the United States early in the pandemic. In this case series, we describe characteristics and outcomes of racially and ethnically diverse patients tested for and hospitalized with COVID-19 in New York City's public hospital system. ⋯ This is the largest and most racially/ethnically diverse case series of patients tested and hospitalized for COVID-19 in New York City to date. Our findings highlight disparities in outcomes that can inform prevention and testing recommendations.
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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a newly emerged coronavirus, and has been pandemic since March 2020 and led to many fatalities. Vaccines represent the most efficient means to control and stop the pandemic of COVID-19. However, currently there is no effective COVID-19 vaccine approved to use worldwide except for two human adenovirus vector vaccines, three inactivated vaccines, and one peptide vaccine for early or limited use in China and Russia. ⋯ Researchers around the world are developing 213 COVID-19 candidate vaccines, among which 44 are in human trials. In this review, we summarize and analyze vaccine progress against SARS-CoV, Middle-East respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and SARS-CoV-2, including inactivated vaccines, live attenuated vaccines, subunit vaccines, virus like particles, nucleic acid vaccines, and viral vector vaccines. As SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV share the common genus, Betacoronavirus, this review of the major research progress will provide a reference and new insights into the COVID-19 vaccine design and development.