COVID
FIFA World Cup ends with win for Argentina and COVID-19, new research finds
IMAGE:
YORK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SCIENCE DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR Jianhong Wu,
view moreCREDIT: YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2024 – The 2022 FIFA World Cup ended with a tight win for Argentina over France on penalties, but it was also a triumph for SARS-CoV-2 with a significant jump in the number of cases, some of which York University researchers say could have been prevented.
New research published today and led by York used the 2022 FIFA World Cup as a case study to help determine the best ways to mitigate virus spread and hospitalizations at mass gatherings in the future. A technique was used to sample initial conditions stemming from possible matches held between visiting teams, which then formed the basis of independent simulations of each game.
The paper, Modelling disease mitigation at mass gatherings: A case study of COVID-19 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, was published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.
Lead author of the paper, York postdoctoral fellow Martin Grunnill, and an academic-industrial collaborative team, including Faculty of Science Distinguished Research Professor Jianhong Wu, found that pre-travel screenings did little to prevent infections and hospitalizations.
Pre-match screening of spectators and match staff, however, with either a rapid antigen test half a day before or with a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test one and a half days before a match, was more effective than pre-travel screening. The researchers found doing both pre-travel and pre-match testing had even better outcomes, but what worked best was ensuring all visitors had a COVID-19 vaccination, a second or booster dose, within a few months of departure to the tournament.
“That precaution reduced the rate of infection and particularly the rate of hospitalizations,” says Grunnill.
Prior to the FIFA World Cup, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were declining in Qatar but began to rise during the tournament peaking at the beginning of the quarter final.
“The ambitious goal of the partnership research includes developing modelling technologies that can be used to assist in the preparation of major mass gathering events, whether religious or sports related in nature or a major festival,” says Wu. “We hope these platforms can be used to provide input into how to help manage respiratory infection risk for the next FIFA World Cup, hosted by North America, and the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.”
Wu points out that even before COVID-19, large events attracting tens of thousands of people spurred the spread of communicable diseases, sometimes globally.
“In the case of international events like the FIFA World Cup where visitors come from all over the world and return home, there is a higher chance of infections spreading beyond the host country,” says Grunnill.
The work is part of an on-going York-Sanofi collaborative project, funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, that aims to developing a generic modelling framework tailored to specific events involving intensive social-economic activities to support preparing those events with minimal risk of disease outbreak and spreading.
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York University is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change and prepare our students for success. York's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. York’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.
JOURNAL
PLoS Computational Biology
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Modelling disease mitigation at mass gatherings: A case study of COVID-19 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
18-Jan-2024
Scientists discover how ultraviolet light degrades coronavirus
IMAGE:
ARTIST IMPRESSION SHOWING UVC LIGHT DEGRADING SARS-COV-2 VIRAL PARTICLE.
view moreCREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
New research has revealed how light can be used to destroy infectious coronavirus particles that contaminate surfaces. Scientists are interested in how environments, such as surgeries, can be thoroughly disinfected from viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
SARS-CoV-2 viral particles are composed of a core of nucleic acid chains that contain the genetic information of the virus, surrounded by a lipid membrane with proteinous spikes sticking out. Each component is necessary for infection.
Researchers from the University of Southampton investigated how ultraviolet laser light destroys the virus by impacting each of these critical components. By using a specialised ultraviolet laser at two different wavelengths the scientists were able to determine how each viral component degraded under the bright light. They found the genomic material was highly sensitive to degradation and protein spikes lost their ability to bind to human cells.
UV light includes UVA, UVB and UVC light. Very little UVC light at frequencies below 280nm reaches the earth’s surface from the sun. It is this lesser studied UVC light that the team in Southampton used for their study due to its disinfectant properties. UVC light is strongly absorbed by different viral components, including the genetic material (~260nm) and the proteinous spikes (~230nm), allowing the team to select laser frequencies of 266nm and 227nm for the project.
University of Southampton scientists, led by Professor Sumeet Mahajan, worked closely with scientists from the laser manufacturer, called M Squared Lasers, and the resulting co-authored study has been published in a journal of the American Chemical Society called ACS Photonics. The team found that 266nm light caused RNA damage at low powers, affecting the genetic information of the virus. 266nm light also damaged the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, reducing its ability to bind to human cells by breaking down disulphide bonds and aromatic amino acids.
The 227nm light was less effective at inducing RNA damage, but more effective at damaging proteins through oxidation (a chemical reaction involving oxygen) which unfolds the protein’s structure.
Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 has among the largest of genomes for RNA viruses. This makes it especially sensitive to genomic damage.
Professor Mahajan said: “Light deactivation of airborne viruses offers a versatile tool for disinfection of our public spaces and sensitive equipment that may otherwise prove difficult to decontaminate with conventional methods. Now we understand the differential sensitivity of molecular components in viruses to light deactivation this opens up the possibility of a finely tuned disinfection technology.”
Light-based deactivation has received a lot of attention because of the wide range of applications where conventional liquid-based deactivation methods aren’t suitable. Now the mechanism of deactivation is better understood this is an important step in rolling out the technology.
Mechanisms of SARS-CoV‑2 Inactivation Using UVC Laser Radiation is published in ACS Photonics and is available online.
Contact
Steve Williams, Media Relations, University of Southampton press@soton.ac.uk or 023 8059 3212.
Notes to editors
- Mechanisms of SARS-CoV‑2 Inactivation Using UVC Laser Radiation is published in ACS Photonics and is available at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00828
- For interviews with Professor Sumeet Mahajan please contact Steve Williams, Media Relations, University of Southampton press@soton.ac.uk or 023 8059 3212.
- Image: Artist impression showing UVC light degrading SARS-CoV-2 viral particle. Credit University of Southampton
Additional information
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JOURNAL
ACS Photonics
ARTICLE TITLE
Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Inactivation Using UVC Laser Radiation
Nasal spray with antibodies could prevent COVID-19
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have shown that nasal drops with IgA antibodies can protect mice from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The results imply a new way to protect individuals at high risk from different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and possibly other infections. The study is published in PNAS.
Different types of antibodies have different functions in the body. IgA antibodies are part of the so-called adaptive immune system and reside naturally in the mucosal membranes of the airways. Absence or low levels of mucosal IgA is known to be associated with an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections.
The current COVID-19 vaccines mainly stimulate an IgG antibody response in the body, and earlier studies have shown that their ability to protect against infection with the new Omicron variants of the virus is limited.
To overcome this, the group led by professor Qiang Pan-Hammarström at Karolinska Institutet used genetic engineering to create IgA antibodies that bind to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in a similar way to the IgG antibodies.
Neutralized the virus effectively
Mice infected with the Omicron variant received the IgA antibody treatment through nasal administration. The nasal drops significantly diminished the virus load in the trachea and lungs of the infected mice. The IgA antibodies were shown to bind stronger to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and were more effective in neutralizing the virus compared to the original IgG antibodies.
“The results show that these genetically engineered antibodies can strengthen the protection against new virus variants, but they are not intended to replace current vaccines,” says Harold Marcotte, associate professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, and the first author of the paper.
“Traditional vaccines elicit an active immune response from the body, whereas this is a passive immunization strategy,” he continues. “An active immunization approach that induces a mucosal immune response would be ideal, but hopefully our approach is suitable for protecting the most vulnerable individuals, like the elderly or immunocompromised persons.”
Promising strategy for other infections
There are also hopes that the method can be used to neutralize other current and emerging variants of the virus.
“We believe that this will be a very promising strategy, not only for COVID-19 and the new variants, but also for other infectious diseases, including influenza and other respiratory infections and gastric mucosal infections such as Helicobacter pylori, where there is no vaccine available at the moment”, says Qiang Pan-Hammarström, professor at the same department and last author of the paper.
The study was conducted within the European research consortium ATAC and through a collaborative effort between Sweden and China including Linköping University, Peking University, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Fudan University, Peking Union Medical College, Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Kunming Institute of Zoology.
It was funded by EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, a joint VR-NCSF funding, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation grant BRIDGE. Some of the authors are listed as inventors of patents regarding antibody treatment.
Publication: “Conversion of monoclonal IgG to dimeric and secretory IgA restores neutralizing ability and prevents infection of Omicron lineages”, Harold Marcotte, Yunlong Cao, Fanglei Zuo, Luca Simonelli, Josè Camilla Sammartino, Mattia Pedotti, Rui Sun, Irene Cassaniti, Marie Hagbom, Antonio Piralla, Jinxuan Yang, Likun Du, Elena Percivalle, Federico Bertoglio, Maren Schubert, Hassan Abolhassani, Natalia Sherina, Concetta Guerra, Stephan Borte, Nima Rezaei, Makiko Kumagai-Braesch, Yintong Xue, Chen Su, Qihong Yan, Ping He, Caroline Grönwall, Lars Klareskog, Luigi Calzolai, Andrea Cavalli, Qiao Wang, Davide F. Robbiani, Michael Hust, Zhengli Shi, Liqiang Feng1, Lennart Svensson, Ling Chen, Linlin Bao, Fausto Baldanti, Junyu Xiao, Chuan Qin, Lennart Hammarström, Xing Lou Yang, Luca Varani, Xiaoliang Sunney Xie, Qiang Pan-Hammarström. PNAS, online 9 January 2024, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2315354120.
JOURNAL
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Conversion of monoclonal IgG to dimeric and secretory IgA restores neutralizing ability and prevents infection of Omicron lineages
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
9-Jan-2024
MSU-led study: Majority of US hospitals found COVID-19 reporting directives to be inconsistent
EAST LANSING, Mich. – The U.S. health care response during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic unveiled challenges in public health reporting systems and electronic clinical data exchange.
A new study led by John (Xuefeng) Jiang, Eli Broad Endowed Professor of Accounting in MSU’s Broad College of Business, examines U.S. hospitals’ experiences in public health reporting, accessing clinical data from external providers for COVID-19 patient care, and their success in reporting vaccine-related adverse events to relevant local, state and federal agencies. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccine providers are encouraged to report any clinically significant health problem following vaccination even if they are not sure if the vaccine was the cause.
“There are significant disparities across government levels due to inconsistent requirements. This research underscores the need for standardized reporting protocols, explicit directives and a pivot from manual to automated processes,” Jiang said. “Tackling these challenges is pivotal for ensuring prompt and reliable data, bolstering future public health responses and rejuvenating trust in public health institutions.
The study, which also includes researchers from the University of Texas, Auburn University and Johns Hopkins, uses datasets from the American Hospital Association, or AHA, 2020 and 2022 annual IT surveys (the survey was skipped in 2021, as the 2020 survey was delayed to early 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The study is the first to examine hospitals’ experiences with public health reporting and their access to external electronic data during the pandemic.
“To fortify the current public health reporting ecosystem, a more comprehensive and coordinated policy approach is imperative,” Jiang said. “The inconsistency in requirements across different government levels presents a clear opportunity for policymakers to introduce harmonized reporting standards. By doing so, they can reduce the administrative burden on hospitals, allowing them to channel more resources toward immediate patient care.”
According to the study, which uses data from 6,012 hospitals, primarily larger nonprofit teaching hospitals in urban areas, only 18% of hospitals found COVID-19 reporting directives to be consistent across government agencies. In addition, reporting to local governments generally appeared to be less burdensome than at the state and federal tiers:
- Twenty-six percent of hospitals reported difficulty obtaining data at the local level, versus 59% at the federal level and 57% at the state level.
- Twenty-five percent of hospitals highlighted inconsistencies in definition of reporting elements at the local level versus 53% at the federal level and 50% at the state level.
- Nineteen percent of hospitals said there were unclear reporting instructions at the local level, versus 39% at the federal level and 42% at the state level.
The study also looked at how hospitals submit data to public health agencies. Per the AHA, there are three different ways for hospitals to share data: automated mode, where electronic health records are sent directly to the public health agency; manual, where data is faxed or manually inputted into a designated portal; and mixed, which combines both automated and manual processes.
The study shows there is a clear shift in hospital data submission practices: by 2022, 23% of hospitals were primarily using an automated approach, up from 5% from 2021 (per the 2020 AHA survey), while use of the mixed approach decreased by 6% and use of the manual approach remained steady.
“Encouraging a shift from manual to automated process should not just be a recommendation, but a public priority,” Jiang said. “Speedy, reliable data are paramount during public health emergencies, and manual processes can inhibit a rapid response.”
The research also found that hospitals with comprehensive electronic health record systems were approximately twice as likely to automate reporting of capacity and supplies data to public health agencies (21% versus 9% in hospitals without such systems) and were more effective in submitting COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse events (91% versus 84%).
Additionally, hospitals offering telehealth services displayed superior reporting capabilities. They were three times more likely to use automated systems for reporting capacity and supplies data than hospitals not offering telehealth and had a higher success rate in submitting COVID-19 vaccine adverse event reports (90% versus 85%).
“These findings underscore the significant role of advanced technology adoption in enhancing hospital reporting efficiency,” said Jiang. “Policy efforts encouraging the adoption of these technologies can substantially improve public health reporting.
Jiang also notes the importance of public trust in effective health reporting, in addition to creating efficient and clear processes and adopting automated systems.
“Public trust is the cornerstone of an effective health response, and policymakers should be cognizant of this. While individual hospitals have a role to play, it is coordinated policy response that will ensure the U.S. is better prepared for public health emergencies,” he said. “The insights from this study can serve as a blueprint for these policy initiatives, ensuring a more resilient, responsive and robust health care system.”
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JOURNAL
Health Affairs Scholar
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
ARTICLE TITLE
Challenges and dynamics of public health reporting and data exchange during COVID-19: insights from US hospitals
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
9-Jan-2024
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