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Inhalers and spacers are very good for asthma medication, but I don't think they need to get as deep into the lungs as the interferon used here.
Ventolin (salbutamol) is a bronchodilator and works by relaxing the muscles in the upper levels of the airway to open them when constricted by an asthma attack. Steroids used for asthma will work by reducing inflammation at this upper level in the lungs to prevent the muscles constricting during an attack.
I think the use of interferon needs to get right down to alveolar level and this needs the finer mist provided by the fine mesh nebuliser.
I think there is a big difference between these nebulisers and inhalers.
The fine mesh here makes for a finer spray with smaller droplets of the interferon.
This means it will be inhaled much deeper into the lungs to reach the treatment area.
Using inhalers may be possible, but if the interferon doesn't get to the right place they won't achieve the same treatment benefit. There is a reason Synairgen have taken 15 years to get to this point and this is all part of what is included in their patent.
Well done for making a complaint to the BBC.
I complained about some of the vaccine news reporting (was not factual) recently.
I got a very receptive and considered response very quickly.
I don't want to be Mrs. Angry, but had always thought of BBC news as good quality independent reporting. They have not been doing themselves any favours with some of their reports/interviewees recently.
The UK have science to be very proud of. We may get selective UK centric reporting, but our science has made a major contribution to the fight against Covid.
Good science requires rigour and integrity. This seemingly random decision without data in the public domain to even support it bypasses the standards expected of the science we should be proud of.
There may be logical arguments for why this could have benefits, but they are not the way good standards of science work. Shameful.
But scinv, if the vaccine had been tested over 10 years we might have data to show the optimal dosing regime from all these options.
Within the timecourse it is remarkable to have the data they have, but the protocol used is what they seem to have efficacy data for and therefore the treatment regime for recommended use. The point of drug trials is to show rigorous evidence of testing and proof of efficacy and safety. It is not a basis to then run your own experiment on your population (unless you are Russia or China). Particularly if this could increase risk of making the vaccine useless for the rest of the world.
Also shameful is that if they think there is data to support this decision it has not been put into the public domain for immediate evaluation.
Alarming that the vaccine the world has been desperate for could now be used in an untested protocol with possible increased risk of selecting for mutations. This could evade the immunity conferred by the vaccine and render it useless for the world.
Am wondering what the UK contract with Pfizer is. If I were Pfizer I might not be keen on giving doses of a precious drug (and very lucrative product) to a country who would use it in a reckless way and may render it useless. Pfizer will have no problem finding takers for all the doses they can produce.
When Russia and China use inadequately tested vaccines we are very shocked. UK are already the source of the new higher transmission virus. How do we look to the rest of the world? I feel so ashamed of the chaos and carnage at every turn this government seems to achieve.
Yes, shops don't really seem to be keeping to social distancing.
I went to buy Christmas food. Clue, it wasn't just food, it was *** food.
The security guard, responsible for distancing and crowd management, told me I could go in while standing firmly in front of me. I said it was 2m hoping he would stand back to give me distance to walk past him. He just laughed and said. 'You'll have trouble with that in here'.
Might laugh if it was funny.....
What a great RNS! Fantastic news!
Am wondering about the change of nebuliser. Was the old one with a mouthpiece and this one with a mask? If so, SNG001 should also reach the nasopharynx and olfactory mucosa in this trial where they did not in the last one. Seem to be suggestions that olfactory mucosa are an important site of infection, so just maybe this trial could give even better results.
Have been cross at the way BBC, even a GP expert, have been talking about this vaccine and 'herd immunity'. They are certainly not making clear that there is no evidence it prevents infection/transmission and would produce herd immunity. Would not normally do this but have written to BBC complaints about their own vaccine 'misinformation'. Chris Whitty seemed to spell it out the other day, but the limits of these vaccines are taking a long time to sink in.
From Guardian today:
The same deletion was spotted when samples of virus were collected from a Cambridge patient with a weakened immune system. The patient was treated with convalescent plasma – blood plasma containing antibodies from a recovered patient. The virus acquired the mutation during that treatment and may have become more resistant to the antibodies. The patient ultimately died from the infection.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/how-a-new-covid-strain-may-have-spread-virus-in-south-of-england
So, this mutation may have arisen in the context of selection in someone given antibody treatment.
Just have to hope it does not evade vaccines.
Still plenty of need for SNG down the line.
From Guardian today:
The same deletion was spotted when samples of virus were collected from a Cambridge patient with a weakened immune system. The patient was treated with convalescent plasma – blood plasma containing antibodies from a recovered patient. The virus acquired the mutation during that treatment and may have become more resistant to the antibodies. The patient ultimately died from the infection.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/how-a-new-covid-strain-may-have-spread-virus-in-south-of-england
So, this mutation may have arisen in the context of selection in someone given antibody treatment.
Just have to hope it does not evade vaccines.
Still plenty of need for SNG down the line.
Slowly sinking in why they would look so worried if the new strain is more infectious..
Firstly, the government are aiming to keep cases below the level hospitals can cope with by keeping R0 below 1.
For covid, estimates of R0 are between 2.5 and 3.5.
The levels of lockdown we have are just about keeping R0 around 1 and leaving the economy barely limping along.
To do the same thing for a more infectious virus with higher R0 (measles has R0 of 12-18) could mean much more demanding lockdowns to keep within the limits of the health service. Implications for the economy could be massive and another question is whether the UK population would do what is needed without riots or just ignoring the rules.
Secondly, there is a vaccination program with the aim of achieving herd immunity so we can get on with a more normal life, stop illness and death and get the economy back to life. Ignore for a moment that the concept of herd immunity requires the vaccine to make people immune ie. not able to be infected or pass on the virus, which there is no current evidence the available vaccines will do.
But, Percentage population for herd immunity = 1 - (1/R0).
So, for the current R0 of 2.5-3.5 the figure of around 70% of the population is often cited.
If the virus becomes as infectious as measles, with R0 of 12-18, percentage of population required for herd immunity rises to 92-94%.
This is percentage of population taking a vaccine with 100% efficacy, or 100% of the population if the vaccine has 92-94% efficacy. This would be very hard to achieve in practice.
But this puts into perspective how the AZ vaccine with 62% efficacy from the useful trial data could fall very far short of getting life back to anywhere near normal in terms of social distancing or allowing the economy to get back on track.
On BBC website. Not verbatim, but words to this effect.
No reason to expect the new variant will have got around the vaccine as there is not so much immunity in the population yet.
It is only after people have been vaccinated that there will be selection and new variants could be expected to evade the vaccine.
Doesn't sound as if he thinks Covid is going away!
It is quite a long article, but well written and well worth reading.
I had not understood how many nasty viruses bats could transmit to us and how easily this could happen as their environments change. As well as Sars, Mers we have also had near misses with Hendra and Nipah. Bats transmitted Hendra and Nipah to horses and pigs in Australia and Malaysia. A small group of people were infected from the horses and pigs with 75% mortality. Luckily there was no person to person transmission so no pandemic, but experts are suggesting that Covid is just a warning.
Particularly interesting is that bats can carry these viruses because of their immune systems including high levels of interferons. So suggestions from UN that we need global pandemic preparedness and also that SNG stockpiles could be a key part of that preparedness look very very real.
Link to this articles was in the same Nature Briefing email today, explaining the data we have not yet seen and are to look out for with respect vaccine trials. How things may look far less rosy when we see more than just the headline data.
https://www.wired.com/story/new-vaccine-data-is-coming-watch-out-for-these-3-claims/?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1639502cf2-briefing-dy-20201208&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1639502cf2-45765946
Sorry if already posted.
Interesting article on how climate change and our impact on the world is making animals move to new environments and find new hosts to pass their infections to when they get there. Very enlightening and shocking. Seems Anthony Fauchi has been saying this. So more reasons why we will need Synairgen stockpiles.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
This looks like and excellent trial to do apart from using injected (?subcutaneous) interferon. Inhaled interferon would probably give it a much better chance of success.
Eleanor Fish has been in discussion with Synairgen, would be great to see this trial done with SNG001.
I went for a flu jab a while ago and my ID was carefully checked.
A bit puzzled, the nurse clarified that people had been coming in claiming to be the person with the appointment (even though the real person was standing a bit behind them in the queue).
Seems vaccine fraud is a thing now. Seemed funny, but could become a problem if there is real 'survival of the fittest' to get precious supplies of vaccine.
Just a thought on the figures for the home trial.
We don't and can't know, so all speculation, but:
RM suggested last week they were recruiting one or two a day since mid October, so maybe around 60 recruits by the date of the lecture.
So maybe Stephen Holgate meant 30 synairgen cases (as well as 30 placebo which would be less interesting) had been enrolled.
One of the problems with late stage illness is increased blood clotting, with multiple small clots seen at post mortem in people who die from covid. Asprin is a very good idea to prevent that aspect of covid and is relatively side effect free so could have advantage if given early in hospitalisation to prevent that clotting.
It will not be in the same niche as SNG as a treatment and will not be a competitor for it.