Effective vaccinations for COVID-19 have been readily available in the United States for well over a year and a new vaccine has just been added to the arsenal. Novavax (NVX-CoV2373), created by a company of the same name, was granted emergency use authorization in early July and has now been endorsed by the CDC.(2) Novavax is approved for adults who are 18 years and older and currently is limited to...

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is the most common bacterial cause of pharyngitis, often referred to as strep throat. GAS can also cause severe invasive infections. People who are elderly, have skin breakdown (when the skin is deprived of blood flow, the skin can become damaged or develop ulcers), or have chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, are at increased risk. Each year in the United States...

As the COVID-19 pandemic moves into its third year, new treatment options to combat the coronavirus disease are being authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In December, 2021, the FDA issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for two oral antiviral treatments for COVID-19, Molnupiravir and Paxlovid.(1,2)
This comes at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and COVID-19...

How dangerous are the BA.2 and BA.3 sub-variants compared to the Omicron BA.1 that we already know?

South Africa has one of the most robust public health systems in the world, carefully monitoring their SARS-CoV-2 case load, which has been dominated these last few months by the Delta variant. In recent months, however...

Probiotics found to assist in restoring normal immune function...

COVID-19 disrupts normal bowel flora

SARS-CoV-2 infection induces an aggressive inflammatory response which is strongly implicated in the cause of multi-organ dysfunction...

Medieval doctors didn’t always prescribe what was best for an ailing patient (leeches were a popular therapy). However, a medical manuscript from the 10th Century called Bald’s Leechbook recently found in the British Library details a concoction of wine, oxbile, and two species of Allium (garlic, onion, or leek) used to treat styes, now known as an infection caused by Staphylococcus aur...

Although of great concern, vaccination will help

When will the pandemic end? How many more COVID-19 waves will the U.S. go through? Will we go back to “normal” in the fall? All these questions depend largely on one factor: the epidemiology of the variants.

As the virus spreads around the world, variant strains hav...

How far do we have to go to reach herd immunity?

First of all we must know that herd immunity is defined as a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that can occur with some diseases when a sufficient...

As COVID-19 presses forward, it is easy to look back at the past year and see nothing but the ruin left behind by the pandemic.

However, as 2021 advances, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Unlike previous years, the 2020-2021 flu season has diminished immensely. Healthcare workers are reporting extraordinarily...

Many states are relaxing restrictions amid both vaccination efforts and slowly decreasing case numbers, however, scientists warn that this pandemic is far from over. Researchers are working to gather more information about the SARS CoV-2 and its variants while the virus continues to mutate.

So, what are variants?...

New Study shows that assays for T Cells against COVID-19 can be good predictor of disease susceptibility.

Ensuring that essential workers are healthy and can receive a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic is extremely important. However, a major question must be considered: How can we identify which individuals...

A novel test for T cells show great promise in detecting immune status

Antibodies often steal the spotlight when talking about immunity, but they are not the only protagonist in the immune system.

T cells are specialized defenders activated in the adaptive...

What are the differences and will they work?

COVID-19 has dominated our lives for the better part of a year and yet we are left with more questions than we are answers. One of these questions most frequently brought up is how long will the antibodies be effective after a vaccination is given?
IgG is a specific type...

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a pandemic on March 11, 2020. ¹ Since then—at the time of writing—63,098,003 cases and 1,465,111 deaths have been reported from 191 afflicted countries/regions across the globe. ² Along with its high transmissibility and...