By Nancy Lapid
Jan 31 (Reuters) - The following is a summary of some recent
studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further
study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be
certified by peer review.
COVID-19 patients face risks after hospital discharge
People face substantially higher risks of health problems in
the months after being discharged from the hospital following a
bout of COVID-19, researchers in England found.
Comparing 24,673 COVID-19 patients who survived at least a
week after hospital discharge and 123,362 similarly aged people
in the general population, they found the COVID-19 survivors had
twice the risk of hospital admission or death during the next 10
months. Compared with 16,058 patients who had been hospitalized
for influenza, the COVID-19 patients were 37% more likely to be
readmitted or die due to their initial infection or other lower
respiratory tract infection, and 37% more likely to experience
cognitive-related admission or death, researchers reported in
PLOS Medicine https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003871.
COVID-19 patients with dementia who survived hospitalization
were at particularly high risk for death in the months
afterward, according to the report.
"Large numbers of people have been hospitalized with
COVID-19... and the raised risks of death and readmission...
could significantly impact public health and resources," the
researchers wrote. "Risks might be minimized or mitigated by
increasing monitoring of patients in the months following
hospital discharge, and greater awareness among patients and
clinicians of potential problems."
Heart returns to normal after rare post-COVID illness in
kids
In children who develop the rare but life-threatening
COVID-19-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C),
heart function begins to recover within a week after diagnosis
and returns to normal within three months, a new study suggests.
With onset about four-to-six weeks after exposure to
COVID-19, MIS-C can cause inflammation in the heart, lungs,
kidneys and gastrointestinal organs. Roughly four in five cases
involve the child's left ventricle, which pumps blood to the
rest of the body. Researchers studied 60 children hospitalized
with MIS-C - 70% of whom had evidence of heart muscle injury -
and 60 healthy children with normal hearts. Echocardiography and
magnetic resonance imaging showed that all abnormalities in the
hospitalized children "recovered quickly within the first week,
followed by continued improvement and complete normalization by
three months," researchers reported in the Journal of the
American Heart Association https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.121.023251.
In half of the children, MIS-C-related heart function changes
were gone within six days, they said.
The study did not evaluate the course of other
after-effects. Still, said Dr. Anirban Banerjee of Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia in a statement, "Recovery among these
children was excellent." He added that the findings have
important implications for managing children with MIS-C. "Our
findings may also provide guidance for a gradual return to
playing sports after cardiac clearance three to four months
later."
Common protein helps virus unlock gateway into cells
When the SARS-CoV-2 spike breaks into cells via a "gateway"
protein on cell surfaces called ACE2, a second cell-surface
protein called vimentin facilitates the process, possibly by
serving as a bridge between the virus and ACE2, new research
suggests.
Using sophisticated analytical chemistry techniques, the
researchers observed that vimentin attaches itself to the spike
protein on the surface of the coronavirus. Based on their
findings, they believe it might also attach itself to the ACE2
protein. In test tube experiments, they saw that when both
vimentin and ACE2 are present, entry of the virus into the cells
that line the blood vessels increases. They also found that
depletion of vimentin significantly reduces SARS-CoV-2 infection
of human cells, according to a report published in PNAS https://www.pnas.org/content/119/6/e2113874119.
Study coauthor Nader Rahimi of Boston University School of
Medicine said his team found that a monoclonal antibody
developed by Abcam Plc blocked vimentin from binding to
the virus, in turn keeping the virus from entering the cells.
Vimentin is also found on cells lining the heart, the air
sacs of the lungs, and the nose, the researchers noted.
"Establishing the full range of the involvement of vimentin in
viral entry and infection will require further investigations,"
the researchers said in a statement. They said they hope their
findings will lead to new antiviral drugs that keep both ACE2
and vimentin from interacting with the coronavirus.
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on
vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
