The number of reported COVID-19 cases in the US crossed the 7 million mark Thursday, accounting for 20% of the global total, as new infections continue to rise in the Midwest. The milestone comes just days after the country's COVID-19 death toll surpassed 200,000, and the latest data reveal that more than 700 people die in the US from COVID-19 each day, while half of US states reported an increase in new cases this month.
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Infectious disease expert Dr. Krutika Kuppalli says COVID-19 is affecting the response to Ebola virus cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The world's resources and heath workforce are strained, resulting in a shortage of funding for contact tracing, case management, community engagement and other prevention efforts, Kuppalli said.
A genetic study on the preprint server MedRxiv that has not yet gone through peer review finds continued mutation in the novel coronavirus based on an analysis of more than 5,000 genetic sequences. "Although we don't know yet, it is well within the realm of possibility that this coronavirus, when our population-level immunity gets high enough, this coronavirus will find a way to get around our immunity," said virologist David Morens at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
An alternative vaccine strategy has helped researchers gain new insights into how to induce T-cell immunity in the respiratory tract, according to a study in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. "We didn't previously know how to elicit these tissue-resident memory cells with a safe protein vaccine, but we now have a strategy to stimulate them in the lungs that will protect against influenza," study author Marulasiddappa Suresh said.
Humanigen and Thermo Fisher Scientific have partnered to boost the company's manufacturing capacity for its drug lenzilumab as a treatment for COVID-19 in line with plans to apply for emergency use authorization. "Manufacturing preparation, precision and expertise are critical as we execute on an aggressive strategy, pending a potential EUA from the FDA, to deliver a COVID-19 therapeutic this winter that has the potential to reduce the risk of ventilation or death and send patients home from the hospital earlier," said Dr. Cameron Durrant, Humanigen's chairman and CEO.
Quest Diagnostics is partnering with Walmart and DroneUp to deliver Quest SARS-CoV-2 home collection kits to residents within a one-mile radius of a Walmart in North Las Vegas using drones. The program will "examine how drones could deliver health care to patients who are unable to leave their home, or live in remote locations," said Dan Haemmerle, Quest Diagnostics' general manager of extended care.
The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $1.7 million grant to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to study multiple myeloma. Research will focus on a pair of drugs that show promise in delaying or preventing relapses in patients who have gone into remission.
The FDA has given emergency use authorization to Vela Diagnostics for its automated ViroKey SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR Test v2.0. A manual version of the test received an EUA in August.
AABB, America's Blood Centers (ABC) and the American Red Cross (ARC) urged the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus to prioritize blood centers by recognizing them as health care facilities for the purpose of vaccine allocation. In the Sept. 4 letter, the organizations highlighted the essential role that blood centers and their personnel play in protecting the health care system. They also emphasized blood centers' role on the front lines of the national response to the pandemic, which places blood center personnel at higher risk for exposure to COVID-19.
