Articles: sars-cov-2.
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Chinese medical journal · Jan 2022
Meta AnalysisReinfection rates among patients previously infected by SARS-CoV-2: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Asymptomatic or symptomatic infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can be followed by reinfection. The protection conferred by prior infection among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients is unclear. We assessed the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and the protection effect of previous infection against reinfection. ⋯ The rate of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 is relatively low. The protection against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection is comparable to that estimated for vaccine efficacy. These data may help guide public health measures and vaccination strategies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. High-quality clinical studies are needed to establish the relevant risk factors in recovered patients.
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COVID-19 is an infectious disease characterized by multiple respiratory and extrapulmonary manifestations, including gastrointestinal symptoms. Although recent studies have linked gut microbiota to infectious diseases such as influenza, little is known about the role of the gut microbiota in COVID-19 pathophysiology. ⋯ Our results suggest that the dysbiosis of the gut microbiome and the dysfunction of the gut barrier might play a role in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 by affecting host immune homeostasis.
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Primary health care providers (PHCPs) are assumed to be at high risk of a COVID-19 infection, as they are exposed to patients with usually less personal protective equipment (PPE) than other frontline health care workers (HCWs). Nevertheless, current research efforts focussed on the assessment of COVID-19 seroprevalence rates in the general population or hospital HCWs. ⋯ The marked increase in seroprevalence during the second COVID-19 wave shows that PHCPs were more at risk during the second wave compared to the first wave in Flanders. This increase was only slightly higher in PHCPs than in the general population suggesting that the occupational health measures implemented provided sufficient protection when managing patients.
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While vaccination programs against the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are globally ongoing, disparate strategies for the deployment of spike antigen show varying effectiveness. ⋯ Our results suggest that the strategy for spike protein delivery impacts on how and to what extent immune priming against the main SARS-CoV-2 antigen proceeds.