OU professor leading research for next steps in monitoring bat coronaviruses
IMAGE: “RHINOLOPHUS ROUXI, ONE OF THE SPECIES INCLUDED IN THE GLOBAL BAT CORONAVIRUS DATABASE view more
CREDIT: SHERRI AND BROCK FENTON
Since the emergence of SARS in 2002, coronaviruses have been recognized as potential pandemic threats. This emergence highlights a need for evidence-based strategies to monitor bat coronaviruses. Daniel Becker, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Oklahoma, is collaborating with other scientists nationwide to determine directions for future research.
Becker, an OU assistant professor of biology, was the senior author of a paper published in Nature Microbiology. The study’s lead author was Lily Cohen, a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and involved collaboration with researchers from Georgetown University and Colorado State University.
Becker and colleagues’ study is part of the broader efforts of an international research team called the Verena Institute, which works to predict which viruses could infect humans, which animals host them and where they could emerge. Becker was a founding member of the institute in 2020.
“Part of the motivation for this is now that everyone has a lot of interest in bat coronaviruses, how can we do the work better and have a better idea of what is going on with these viruses in nature?” Becker said. “This work is important for global health and conservation efforts. The result was a very heavy data-driven recommendation on where to go forward on bat coronaviruses in the wild.”
For this study, researchers focused on highlighting where in the world there hasn’t been enough sampling, which groups of bats haven’t been sampled enough, and using all available data to improve surveying bats in terms of prioritizing what to do next. During the study, researchers compiled records of coronavirus infection prevalence in wild bats from 110 studies, spanning over 80,000 tested samples, and looked at biases in the way research on bat coronaviruses has been conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their research found substantial differences in coronavirus prevalence across studies, reflecting variation in virus dynamics over space and time as well as methodological differences. Sample type and sampling design were the best predictors of coronavirus prevalence.
Their study shows that bat sampling prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was concentrated in China, with research gaps in South Asia, the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in subfamilies of leaf-nosed bats. Becker and colleagues propose that future surveillance strategies should address these gaps to improve global health security and enable the origins of zoonotic coronaviruses to be identified.
The work was supported by funding to the Verena Institute from the National Science Foundation as well as the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Cohen received funding from the Ramon Murphy Program for Global Health Education in the Department of Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
JOURNAL
Nature Microbiology
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Coronavirus sampling and surveillance in bats from 1996–2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-May-2023
Fear of COVID-19 causes psychological distress in nursing and hospital clerical workers
Tsukuba, Japan―The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant decline in mental health, particularly for hospital clerical workers who care for infected patients. However, few studies have examined the mental health of different hospital occupations in Japan, particularly in relation to fear of COVID-19 and resilience, which are unique factors of this pandemic.
To address this gap, the researchers conducted an online survey of workers from seven hospitals in Ibaraki Prefecture that had responded to COVID-19. The survey sought to determine the relationship between psychological distress, fear of COVID-19, and resilience among hospital workers based on their occupation. Participants were asked about their gender, age, job title, psychological distress, fear of COVID-19, and resilience. They were also asked about their perceptions of various hospital initiatives during the pandemic. The results showed that nursing and clerical staff experienced higher levels of fear of COVID-19, which contributed to their higher levels of psychological distress. Conversely, physicians were found to have higher resilience levels. The availability of in-hospital consultation on infection control and the provision of psychological and emotional support were linked to lower levels of fear of COVID-19.
These findings suggest that a comprehensive support system is crucial for mental health care of hospital workers dealing with the spread of infection. A framework that offers psychological and emotional support and a platform to discuss workplace-related concerns can be effective.
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This study was supported in part by grants-in-aid from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Special Research Projects (20CA2055), "Research contributing to mental health measures in the With-COVID-19 Era" grant number (DGA02604J), and Ibaraki Prefectural Research Center of Disaster and Community Psychiatry (DLF00197E).
Original Paper
Title of original paper:
Association of fear of COVID-19 and resilience with psychological distress among health care workers in hospitals responding to COVID-19: analysis of a cross-sectional study
Journal:
Frontiers in Psychiatry
DOI:
10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1150374
Correspondence
Professor TACHIKAWA, Hirokazu
Professor ARAI, Tetsuaki
Professor YAMAGATA, Kunihiro
Institute of Medicine, University of Tsukuba
Related Link
JOURNAL
Frontiers in Psychiatry
ARTICLE TITLE
Association of fear of COVID-19 and resilience with psychological distress among health care workers in hospitals responding to COVID-19: analysis of a cross-sectional study
International pandemic governance need not prioritize compliance and sanctions
Reports and ProceedingsIn a Policy Forum, Mark Eccleston-Turner and colleagues argue that upcoming negotiations surrounding the World Health Organization (WHO) international pandemic treaty need not be overly focused on formal compliance mechanisms and sanctions. Instead, Eccleston-Turner et al. suggest that any efforts to ensure compliance should be part of broader efforts to ensure effective and equitable implementation across all member states. Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) are preparing for ambitious governance reforms to global health policy to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response through international law. The International Health Regulations (IHR) is the sole legal framework for ensuring a coordinated response to global health crises. However, across numerous outbreaks, including COVID-19, these regulations have been criticized as being ineffective, an outcome that has largely been blamed on failures of compliance and enforcement. As a result, a focus of negotiations on the new Pandemic Treaty and amendments to the IHR is how compliance by member states can be best achieved. Here, Eccleston-Turner et al. discuss how debates surrounding formal sanctioning power rely upon simplistic assumptions and one-size-fits-all solutions, which could, in turn, discourage compliance and best practice implementation. Instead of formal sanctions and the threat of punitive actions in response to noncompliance, the authors argue that a holistic approach to understanding and encouraging compliance and implementation must consider the overall legal, institutional, and political aspects of such as a total “package” that can generate trust and mutual reliance between member states.
JOURNAL
Science
ARTICLE TITLE
Implementation, compliance, and pandemic legal obligations
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
26-May-2023
Study investigates how the severity of effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England was affected by the mass vaccination campaign and emergence of Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants between May 2020 and March 2022
IMAGE: A COMPARISON OF DAILY DEATHS AND HOSPITALISATIONS TO SWAB POSITIVITY AS MEASURED BY REACT-1. view more
CREDIT: EALES O, ET AL., 2023, PLOS BIOLOGY, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002118
Article Title: Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection hospitalisation and infection fatality ratios over 23 months in England
Author Countries: United Kingdom
Funding: see manuscript
JOURNAL
PLoS Biology
COI STATEMENT
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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