The U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted analyses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 years old ahead of Tuesday’s vaccines advisory committee meeting.
Just before the weekend, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted analyses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 years old ahead of Tuesday’s vaccines advisory committee meeting. For that and other COVID-19 news, read on.
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Appears Effective in 5- to 11-Year-Olds
The FDA posted analyses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s data on their COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11. The agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is holding a meeting on October 26, 2021, to discuss and recommend the Pfizer-BioNTech emergency use authorization (EUA) request for their COVID-19 vaccine for the age group. Documents prepared for the meeting show the vaccine is more than 90% effective in this age group. The agency also suggested that the vaccine’s ability to prevent hospitalizations and death from COVID-19 would outweigh any possible severe side effects in children for the vaccine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s chief medical advisor and the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said the vaccine would likely be available to this age group in the first half of November.
Study: Air Filters and UV Light Can Prevent Hospital Transmission
A study put up on MedRxiv, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, showed that portable high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters can decrease hospital transmission of airborne COVID-19 in a real-world health-care setting. Researchers at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) conducted the research. They repurposed two COVID-19 hospital units into a general ward and an intensive care unit (ICU), installed HEPA filters, and then collected and compared air samples from before and after the HEPA filters were turned on.
Dr. Andrew Conway Morris, clinician-scientist in Intensive Care Medicine at University of Cambridge, indicated that when he “saw the data we were stunned [with the] complete removal of SARS-CoV-2 from the atmosphere of the ward tested.”
COVID-19 Brain Fog Can Last for Months
The so-called “brain fog” or cognitive impairment associated with COVID-19 in some patients is apparently able to persist for months, even in some patients who did not require hospitalization. A new study published in JAMA Network Open demonstrated that almost 25% of COVID-19 patients in a Mount Sinai Health System registry described some problems with their memory. However, it was more common in hospitalized patients.
“In this study, we found a relatively high frequency of cognitive impairment several months after patients contracted COVID-19,” wrote Jacqueline Becker, Ph.D., and her colleagues in the study. “Impairments in executive functioning, processing speed, category fluency, memory encoding, and recall were predominant among hospitalized patients.”
What’s the Definition of Fully Vaccinated?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have indicated that the agency may need to “update our definition of truly vaccinated in the future” as the number of people receiving a booster shot rises. The agency has not updated the definition yet because not all people are eligible for boosters. The current definition says people are fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.
Rochelle Walensky, M.D., director of the CDC, said, “We still have over 93% of our counties with high or moderate community transmission, currently around 64 million Americans remain unvaccinated, leaving themselves and their children, their families, their loved ones and communities vulnerable.”
People with Weakened Immune Systems Feel “Left Behind”
While many people who have received COVID-19 vaccines feel things are back to normal, at least some level of “new normal,” people who have certain weakened immune systems feel “left behind.” For the most part, for people who have immunosuppression syndromes, it’s difficult to get their immune systems up to full efficacy against the virus even with effective vaccines.
For example, Jemela Williams, 40, of Kansas City, Mo., who has sickle cell disease, hasn’t felt her life had changed much after getting the vaccine. She has rarely seen friends face-to-face and doesn’t know when she will be comfortable traveling again.
“Of course I don’t begrudge people for having their fun,” she told NBC News. “But it is incredibly frustrating because you are kind of left behind. And it feels like everybody else is not taking things as seriously as you are.”
According to the CDC, about 3% of adults in the U.S. are moderately to severely immunocompromised.
New Study Suggests a Malaria Drug Might Help Fight COVID-19
A study published in the journal ACS Infectious Diseases evaluated the potential of atavaquone against the Wuhan wildtype strain of SARS-CoV-2 and other variants of concern. The study tested the drug in cell cultures infected with several different strains of COVID-19. The data showed a dose-dependent block in the infectivity.
Anecdotal evidence from 17 patients in Quebec and Ontario, Canada, had suggested the malarone/atovaquone might have a preventive effect. So the researchers decided to test the drugs in cell cultures to evaluate the antiviral potential. They found that it “potently inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 and other variants of concern including the alpha, beta, and delta variants. Importantly, atovaquone retained its full antiviral activity in a primary human airway epithelium cell culture model.”
Two clinical trials were initiated in the U.S. in 2020 to evaluate atovaquone alone or in combination with azithromycin, but the results have still not been reported. This new study suggests that the drug may be a strong antiviral against COVID-19.
