By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. These include studies that require further investigation to confirm the findings and that have not yet been certified by peer review.
COVID-19 worsens asthma in children
Asthma in children can worsen after coronavirus infection, doctors warn.
They studied nearly 62,000 American children with asthma who had PCR tests for the virus in the first year of the pandemic, including more than 7,700 who tested positive. Infected children had significantly more visits with asthma, hospitalizations, emergency inhalation and steroid treatment in the six months after illness than children who tested negative and had their own previous history, according to researchers in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. : In Practice Children who tested negative for the virus “had improved asthma control over the next six months, which means fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations for asthma and less asthma treatment,” he said. Christine Chow of Children’s Health in Orange County, California.
The results of earlier studies showing improvements in asthma control in the early part of the pandemic are likely due to public health measures such as staying at home and camouflage, which limit exposure to asthma provokers, she said. Despite the overall impression that children with asthma performed well in the first year of the pandemic, Chow added, the new study shows “longer-term damage than COVID on asthma control in children.”
Booster after infection adds a few extra benefits compared to Omicron
Among people who have previously been infected with coronavirus, a third dose of mRNA vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna may not increase their protection against the Omicron virus variant, according to new data.
Researchers studied nearly 130,000 people tested for COVID in Connecticut from November 2021 to January 2022, including 10,676 with Omicron infections. Approximately 6% to 8% were infected with previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a report published on medRxiv prior to the peer review. Two doses of mRNA vaccine helped protect against Omicron in people with previous infections, but “we found no additional benefit from receiving a third booster dose in this population,” said Margaret Lind of Yale University.
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A separate study from Canada, also published in medRxiv prior to the peer review, similarly found that more than two doses of vaccine “may have little added value” to protect previously infected people against Omicron. The message, Lind said, “should be that (1) people should receive two doses of mRNA vaccine, whether or not they have a previous infection, that (2) people without previous infections should receive a booster dose, and that (3) people with previous infections should consider a booster dose, especially if they are in a high-risk group for life-threatening complications, but recognize that it may not provide significant additional protection against infection above two doses. “
Click on the Reuters schedule for vaccines under development.
(Report by Nancy Lapid; edited by Bill Bercrot)
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