#scientists call them disease reservoirs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

koreaunderground · 4 years ago

Text

(2020/09/06) New data leak from the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia

[armswatch.com][1]

[1]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/>

# New data leak from the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia - Arms Watch

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva

14-17 minutes

* * *

[![][2]][3]The Lugar Center is a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi (photo: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva)

[2]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Lugar-Center-696x392.jpg (Lugar Center) [3]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Lugar-Center.jpg>

Leaked e-mails between the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Tbilisi, the US Embassy to Georgia and the Georgian Ministry of Health reveal new information about the [$161 million][4] secretive US Government biological research program in this former Soviet country.

[4]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-contract-award/delivery-order-hdtra108d0008-0002>

The data allegedly originating from the Ministry of Health of Georgia has been published anonymously on Twitter and on a forum for database leaks – Raidforums. Among the documents there are internal memos, official letters and detailed information about US government projects at the Lugar Center, funding and foreign business trips.

Arms Watch volunteers have analyzed the leaked data and discovered very interesting facts about the Center’s recent activities.

The Pentagon has planned to turn Georgia into its largest biological research center overseas, combining its military resources with the resources of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Georgia.

Furthermore, the number of US projects and grants have increased as well as the number of US scientists deployed to the Lugar Center. The Pentagon-funded facility is planned to temporarily accommodate 16 CDC specialists from Atlanta, for whom Georgia will build a separate BSL-2 laboratory, administrative building and a campus near the Lugar Center. In addition, Georgia will become a regional CDC hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, internal documents reveal.

The Lugar Center already sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when [leaked documents][5] revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in the trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program.

[5]: <http://dilyana.bg/us-diplomats-involved-in-trafficking-of-human-blood-and-pathogens-for-secret-military-program/>

The Lugar Center is just one of the many [Pentagon biolaboratories in 25 countries][6] across the world. They are funded by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a [$ 2.1 billion military program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP)][7], and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia (the motherland of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin) and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.

[6]: <http://dilyana.bg/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/> [7]: <https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43143.pdf>

**Pentagon research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center**

US military scientists have been deployed to Georgia for research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center, according to the new data leak. [These bio-agents][8] have the potential to be aerosolized and used as bioweapons. Among them anthrax, tularemia, Brucella, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Hantavirus, Y. pestis (causing the disease plague).

[8]: <https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/agentlist-category.asp>

The US military biological research projects in Georgia have been funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to internal data, American and Georgian scientists are currently working on the following DTRA projects in the Lugar Center:

**Project 1059:** **Zoonotic Infections with Fever and Skin Injuries in Georgia**

The project includes isolation of new orthopoxviruses in humans, rodents, domestic and wild animals in Georgia, and collection of rodents (as a natural reservoir for this virus) for their further study.

Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018 (extended to 2020)

Funding: $702,343

**Project 1060:** **Characterization of the Georgian National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) Strain Repository by New Generation Sequencing**

Description: characterization and genome research on 100 strains from four endemic species: Y. pestis (causing the disease plague), B. anthracis (anthrax), Brucella, and F. tularensis (causing the disease tularemia).

Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018

Funding: $ 518,409

**Project 1439:** **Molecular Virological Research in Georgia**

Description and objectives:

* Identify and characterize Hantavirus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) strains by molecular methods; * Characterize and study genetic diversity of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantavirus strains isolated from rodents and ectoparasites; * Serological examination of febrile patients with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome; * Collection of rodents and ectoparasites (ticks, fleas);

Duration: 16/08/2017-15/08/2021

Funding: $612,614

**Project 1497:** **Molecular Epidemiology and Ecology of Yersinia Species in Georgia and Azerbaijan**

Description: 1) Ecological research on rodents in Kerb on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border 2) Isolation of different strains of Yersinia; 3) Molecular screening of collected rodent and flea samples. 4) A comparative analysis of the genomes of Yersinia strains obtained during the fieldwork; 5) Spatial analysis of the distribution of Yersinia strains.

Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018 (extended to 2022)

Funding: $134,090.00

**Project 1742:** **Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia**

Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019

Funding: $71,500[![][9]][10]

[9]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EcoHealth-Alliance-Project-1024x820.jpg [10]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EcoHealth-Alliance-Project.jpg>

In 2017 the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) launched a [$6.5 million project on bats and coronaviruses][11] in Western Asia (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan) with the Lugar Center being the local laboratory for this genetic research. The duration of the program is 5 years and has been implemented by the non-profit [US organisation Eco Health Alliance.][12]

[11]: <https://www.usaspending.gov/#/award/ASST_NON_HDTRA11710064_9761> [12]: <https://www.wabnet.org/research/coronavirus-project/>

The project’s objectives are: 1. Capture and non-lethally sample 5,000 bats in 5-year period (2017-2022) 2. Collect 20,000 samples (i.e. oral, rectal swabs and/or feces, and blood) and screen for coronaviruses using consensus PCR at regional labs in Georgia and Jordan. According to [the project presentation][13], Eco Health Alliance already sampled 270 bats of 9 species in three Western Asian countries: 90 individual bats in Turkey (Aug 2018), Georgia (Sept 2018), and Jordan (Oct 2018).

[13]: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328676300_Bats_and_Viruses_in_Western_Asia_A_Model_for_One_Health_Surveillance_using_Research_Networks>

_EcoHealth Alliance and Georgian scientists[sampling a bat][14] for coronavirus research in 2018 (Facebook, Keti Sidamonidze)_

[14]: <https://www.facebook.com/847064690/videos/pcb.10158498937989691/10158498942329691>

Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance received a [$3.7 million grant][15] from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.

[15]: <https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=R01AI110964&arg_ProgOfficeCode=104>

**Project 1911:** **Ricketsia and Coxelia infection surveillance in Georgia and Azerbaijan** (US federal grant [HDTRA1-19-1-0042][16] awarded to NCDC-Georgia)

[16]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-grant-award/project-grant-hdtra11910042>

Duration: 23/09/2019 – 22/09/2022

Funding: $945,000

Despite the official claims of Georgia and USA that the Lugar Center is under the full control of the government of this Caucasus country internal documents show otherwise. Not only has the Pentagon funded biological research projects but it has also paid all the expenses for security and maintenance including utility bills – water, gas, electricity, and cleaning. Tasked with the operational and scientific support to the Lugar Center is USAMRU-Georgia, a special unit deployed to Georgia by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). WRAIR has paid: $524,625 (2016-2018), $650,000 (2017-2019) and $1,062,400 (2017-2021) for utility bills, and a further $158,050 (2016-2017) and $322,000 (2018-2021) for security guards.

The Pentagon has also awarded a private US contractor, Technology Management Company (TMC) an [$8 million contract][17] for science services to support USAMRU-Georgia in the Lugar Center (2016-2021).

[17]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-idv-award/indefinite-delivery-contract-w81xwh16d0022>

WRAIR projects at the Lugar Center

**Tularemia research on soldiers**

The Pentagon unit USAMRU-Georgia has conducted extensive research on tularemia involving Georgian soldiers, [scientific papers][18] reveal.

[18]: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6453017/>

Tularemia is a rare infectious disease that typically attacks the skin, eyes, lymph nodes and lungs. Tularemia, also called rabbit fever or deer fly fever, is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. It _is categorized as_[a category A bioterrorism agent][19]. Tularemia was weaponized for mass aerosol dissemination by the US Army in the past, according to a recently declassified military report.

[19]: <https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/agentlist-category.asp>

[![][20]][21]

[20]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia1.png [21]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia1.png>

[![][22]][23]

[22]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia2.png [23]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia2.png>

_Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source:[1981 ][24][US Army Report][24]_

[24]: <http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/entomological-weapons>

900 volunteers (soldiers and civilians) were recruited for the [DTRA project GG-19][25] “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” from 2014 to 2017. Blood samples were collected from those volunteers and tested for tularemia.

[25]: <https://ncdc.ge/Handlers/GetFile.ashx?ID=af53c8f1-7461-41b2-b5ff-89140c6e2188>

According to the study, 10 soldiers (2%) of the 500 solders tested had antibodies for F. tularensis. The seropositive soldiers were men, the majority of whom were between 30 and 39 years of age. Seven cases had current residences in known endemic areas (i.e. Kakheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, and Tbilisi). Three were from areas without previously known F. tularensis transmission (i.e. Imereti).

Of the 783 residents approached to participate in this study, 35 (5.0%) volunteers had antibodies to _F. tularensis_.

While the civilian volunteers were all residents of two areas with naturally occurring foci of tularemia in Georgia, the military personnel were soldiers visiting Georgia’s military hospital. The study does not provide any explanation as to why soldiers were enrolled in this project nor how exactly they contracted the disease in the army.

Project GG-19: Tularemia in Georgia

Furthermore, Georgia has asked the US Embassy for assistance for the construction of a second military hospital in the country, according to leaked correspondence between local health officials and the US Embassy to Tbilisi.

[![][26]][27]

[26]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/New-Military-Hospital-page-001-scaled.jpg [27]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/new-military-hospital-page-001/>

[![][28]][29]

[28]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/New-Military-Hospital-page-002-scaled.jpg [29]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/new-military-hospital-page-002/>

Below is Google translation in English of this correspondence:

[![][30]][31]

[30]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation.jpg [31]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation.jpg>

[![][32]][33]

[32]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page1.jpg [33]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page1.jpg>

[![][34]][35]

[34]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page2.jpg [35]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page2.jpg>

**CDC regional hub**

The US Government has launched a parallel civil program in Georgia implemented by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Leaked e-mails between the US Embassy to Tbilisi and Georgian health officials reveal that CDC has planned to set up a regional office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia. The US Embassy and CDC have requested additional office space for 16 employees. Currently the CDC staff are working inside the Lugar Center.

CDC regional hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia

Interestingly, the Georgian health officials do not ask about any further information or clarification as to what this new foreign hub is going to do in their own country. Instead, Georgia’s Ministry of Health has planned the construction of a new BSL-2 laboratory, conference hall and campus near the Lugar Center with a loan from the European Investment Bank, according to a letter to the finance minister of Georgia leaked on Raidforums.

[![][36]][37] [![][38]][39]

[36]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture1.jpg [37]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture1.jpg> [38]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture2.jpg [39]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture2.jpg>

Arms Watch could not independently verify the authenticity of this letter as we did not find it in the leaked files. We have further analyzed the ministry’s internal data and discovered the following CDC projects in Georgia:

**Project 1320: Antimicrobial Resistance Project**

Duration: 01/09/2016 -29/09/2020

Funding: $153,492.40

**Project 1440:** **Introducing or Expanding the Use of Influenza Vaccine Outside the United States**

Duration: 30/09/2016 – 29/09/2019

Funding: $750,000

**Project 1441:** **Influenza Surveillance Outside the United States**

Duration: 30/09 / 16-29 / 09/21

Funding: $250,000

**Project 1446: Strengthening New Generation Sequencing Capacities for Hepatitis C Surveillance in Georgia**

Duration: 01/07/2017-30 /06/2018

Funding: $22,000

**Project 1447:** **Samples collection under the Hepatitis C Elimination Program in Georgia – Bio-Bank**

Objective: The aim of the project is to store samples collected under the Hepatitis C program for future scientific work

* 20,000 plasma/serum samples * 6,000 serum samples from the 2015 National Seroprevalence Survey of Hepatitis C and B * 1,000 blood samples from blood banks * 500 blood samples from patients with terminal liver disease

Duration: 01/07/2017-30/06/2018

**Project 1456:** **Strengthening the micronutrient deficit monitoring system in Georgia**

Duration: 01/09/2017 – 31/08/2018

Funding: $92,875

**Project 1457:** **Genetic peculiarities of hepatitis C virus in Georgia and its role in the Georgian Hepatitis C elimination program**

Objective: Evaluate morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis C virus

Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018

Funding: $127,125

**Project 1532:** **Strengthening, detection, response and prevention of diarrhea outbreaks in Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/09/2020

Funding: $40,000

**Project 1533:** **Strengthening Immunization and Vaccination Control System**

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $67,220.00

**Project 1534: Respiratory Disease Surveillance**

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $80,000.00

**Project 1535:** **Enterovirus surveillance Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/ 09/2020

Funding: $45,000

**Project 1536:** **National Laboratory Quality Control Program in Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020

Funding: $56,140

**Project 1537:** **South Caucasus Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020

Funding: $150,000

**Project 1538: Fever of unknown etiology caused by arboviruses in the Black Sea region** – clinical specimens will be shipped to the CDC Laboratory for analyses

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $100,360

In conclusion, the United States has been consistently developing its laboratory facilities in the Caucasus. Why has the US Government spent billions of dollars on such biolaboratories and projects abroad instead on the health of its own citizens?

Scientists with diplomatic immunity

Furthermore, why have [US scientists working at the Lugar Center been given diplomatic status and immunity][40] to research deadly pathogens and insects in Georgia? Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for their activities. Hence, US scientists could even perform illegal experiments in Georgia without being prosecuted as they have diplomatic immunity.

[40]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8hQi2Zv1L0&t=12s>

_P.S. Arms Watch is currently analyzing all leaked data. Due to the large volume of information, we will publish more documents in another article soon. If you want to support Arms Watch, please go to the_[ _Donation_][41] _page or_[ _Become Volunteer_][42] _. Thank you!_

[41]: <https://armswatch.com/donate/> [42]: <https://armswatch.com/become-volunteer/>

#USA #GOF #USAMRIID #bioweapons #JUPITR

5 notes · View notes

sciencespies · 4 years ago

Text

Even Vampire Bats Socially Distance Themselves When They Feel Sick

https://sciencespies.com/nature/even-vampire-bats-socially-distance-themselves-when-they-feel-sick/

Even Vampire Bats Socially Distance Themselves When They Feel Sick

Bats have long endured a bad reputation, even before COVID-19 emerged. These highly mobile creatures that live in clustered colonies are well-known reservoirs of viruses, including coronaviruses, that, as we’ve seen, can spill over into humans.

But these innocent animals are unfairly maligned. They are important pollinators and pest controllers. And when bats are feeling sick, new research shows they naturally display their own form of social distancing behaviours, similar to the measures we’ve had to adopt to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The study had scientists tagging a group of wild vampire bats from a colony in Lamanai, Belize, and tracking their social encounters every few seconds over a couple of days. When they injected the bats with a substance that triggered their immune systems, the ‘sick’ bats clearly changed their behaviour and became less social.

“In the wild, [we observed] vampire bats – which are highly social animals – keep their distance when they’re sick or living with sick groupmates,” said Simon Ripperger, a bat researcher from The Ohio State University.

“And it can be expected that they reduce the spread of disease as a result.”

Previous work from this group of researchers had shown that, in captivity, sick bats sleep more, move less, spend less time grooming other bats, and make fewer social calls (which usually attract their mates). The researchers call this ‘sickness behaviour’.

“We really wanted to see whether these behavioural changes also occur in a natural setting where the bats are within their natural social and physical environment,” Ripperger told ScienceAlert.

Collecting data on social interactions between bats would also be useful if researchers want to predict how sickness behaviour can reduce the spread of disease in these animals, the same way social distancing does in humans.

So the researchers analysed data from a briefly captured group of 31 common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus), which are native to Latin America, from a colony roosting inside a hollow tree.

Sixteen randomly selected female bats were injected with a substance to activate their immune system, which made them feel sick for a few hours but didn’t cause any real disease. Another 15 bats were given a shot of salty water as a placebo.

Before the ‘sick’ and healthy bats were returned to their roost, they also had tiny sensors, each weighing less than a penny, glued to their furry little backs.

“The sensors gave us the opportunity to automatically track the behaviour of an entire social group, rather than focal sample individuals at a time, what one usually does in a lab setting,” Ripperger said. “That was a great step forward.”

The sensors used to track social interactions between bats. (Simon Ripperger)

The custom sensors, designed by Ripperger and his colleagues, work by broadcasting a signal every 2 seconds that ‘wakes up’ any neighbouring sensors (attached to a bat) within 5 to 10 metres.

Every time this happened in the three days after the bats were captured and released, the sensors logged an encounter. From the strength and duration of the pairwise signal, the scientists could tell when two bats came into close contact with one another, and for how long.

“We focused on three measures of the sick bats’ behaviours: how many other bats they encountered, how much total time they spent with others, and how well-connected they were to the whole social network,” said behavioural ecologist Gerald Carter from The Ohio State University.

The network analysis shows that ‘sick’ bats were indeed less socially connected to their healthy, social roost mates.

In the first six-hour window after treatment, a ‘sick’ bat had on average four fewer encounters than a control bat, and ‘sick’ bats spent less time (25 minutes less) interacting with each partner.

As expected, 48 hours later, once the treatment had worn off and the ‘sick’ bats were feeling better, they mostly resumed their normal social behaviours.

“It was amazing that the effect was so clearly visible,” Ripperger told ScienceAlert.

“Even without a complicated statistical analysis you directly saw what is going on simply from looking at the social networks.”

It should be noted that because the researchers didn’t infect the vampire bats with a real virus or bacteria, they didn’t measure the spread of an actual disease in a bat colony, which could influence bat behaviour in other ways.

“It is important to remember that changes in behaviour also depend on the pathogen,” Carter said. “Some real diseases might make interactions more likely, not less, or they might lead to sick bats being avoided.”

The study also only looked at a small group of bats within a single roost.

Tracking how bats move and interact between colonies will be a greater challenge, especially as scientists are just discovering the huge distances that bats travel – even thousands of kilometres each year – between roosts.

The research was published in Behavioral Ecology.

#Nature

1 note · View note

bpod-bpod · 5 years ago

Photo

HIV’s Way In

Lymph nodes (like the one pictured) are jam-packed full of immune cells and thus paradise for HIV – a virus that attacks and destroys such cells. And what’s worse, certain cells in lymph nodes called follicular dendritic cells act as reservoirs for the virus maintaining its infectivity and making the infection hard to treat. Now researchers have discovered in mice how HIV gets into these cells. They found that macrophage cells (cyan) lining the draining vessels act as transport shuttles for HIV particles (green speckles), carrying them to the underlying dendritic cells (blue). What’s more, they’ve identified a protein in the macrophages that's pivotal to this virus-shuttling process. Indeed, absence of the protein dramatically reduced the spread of HIV into the dendritic cells. By understanding how HIV is recruited to and harboured within these cells scientists have the chance to design new treatments that can limit HIV’s deadly occupation.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image by John Kehrl and Chung Park

B-cell Molecular Immunology Section, Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in eLife, December 2019

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

#science #biomedicine #hiv #lymph nodes #immunology #immunofluorescence #eLife #macrophages

9 notes · View notes

againstcorona-blog · 5 years ago

Text

What Is the Coronavirus?

SUPPORT US

What is the coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a family of hundreds of viruses that can cause fever, respiratory problems, and sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms too. The 2019 novel coronavirus is one of seven members of this family known to infect humans, and the third in the past three decades to jump from animals to humans. Since emerging in China in December, this new coronavirus has caused a global health emergency, sickening almost 100,000 people worldwide, and so far killing more than 3,000. As of March 3, about 100 cases had been reported in the US, and six people have died.

How does it spread?

Researchers are still trying to understand how SARS-CoV-2 spreads between humans. (SARS-CoV-2 is the official name of the germ; the official name of the disease you get from the germ is Covid-19—more on that below.) It’s likely to be transmitted in droplets from coughing or sneezes, and the virus has a two- to 14-day incubation period. That means people could be infectious for quite a while before symptoms like fever, cough, or shortness of breath emerge.

Right now, CDC officials say Americans should prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Based on the number of new cases, the overall risk of getting Covid-19 is still pretty low in most parts of this country. But flaws in testing kits and strict testing requirements have severely limited how many people have so far been tested, which means nobody knows who might actually be infected, or how serious (or mild) their illnesses might be. Growing numbers of cases of community spread in California and Washington suggest that the virus may be circulating more widely than case numbers might indicate.

What are the particular symptoms of Covid-19?

In the confirmed cases so far, most people get a fever with a dry cough; smaller numbers of folks might experience shortness of breath, a sore throat, or a headache.

How can I avoid catching the coronavirus?

Wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands. You get the point.

Clean all of your tech equipment. Just like your hands, your smartphone and keyboard and headphones and anything else gets germs on it.

Are you a health care worker? If not, don't buy a face mask—that depletes supplies for the health professionals who need them. Same goes for gloves (see: "wash your hands," above).

If you're in a high-risk group (over 60, have preexisting lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, or a weakened immune system) you should seek treatment if you get sick, since it can quickly go from cough to full-blown pneumonia. Call your doctor or clinic first with your suspicions so they can direct you appropriately. If you're not in a high-risk group, better to self-isolate at home with plenty of fluids and anti-fever meds. Odds are you'll recover, and this way you won't expose anyone. Still call your doctor, so they know what's going on—they may be able to direct you to people at the health department who can conduct testing. Don't go to the ER unless you're really experiencing life-threatening symptoms.

Is Covid-19 more deadly than the flu?

That remains to be seen. According to preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 2019–2020 flu caused 19 million to 25 million illnesses and up to 25,000 deaths. The Covid-19 numbers are harder to calculate because it’s not yet clear how many people are infected. The CDC calculates the death rate at about 2 percent, which is higher than the flu—but the real number might be a lot lower, because less-severe cases may not have been reported. People with more mild cases might not even go to the hospital, and health care workers might have mistaken cases for the flu or for pneumonia. If epidemiologists count only the most severe cases, the death rate will look higher because a higher proportion of those patients die—so that might not offer an accurate reflection of reality.

The biggest difference between the two types of infection is that the health system is better prepared to fight the flu. It comes every year and, while some strains are more severe than others, doctors know how to treat and prevent it. Covid-19 is uncharted territory, because scientists have so many questions about how it spreads, and there isn’t a vaccine for it. That’s why governments around the world are responding so quickly by discouraging travel to China and quarantining people who may have been exposed. The World Health Organization hasn't officially called Covid-19 a pandemic—it's probably waiting to see if sustained person-to-person transmission happens outside of China. It's looking at Iran, Italy, and South Korea for that.

How did it get its official name?

The international committee tasked with classifying viruses has named the new one SARS-CoV-2, because of its close genetic ties to another coronavirus, the one that causes SARS. However, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2—remember, that's the disease characterized by coughing, fever, and respiratory distress—is called Covid-19. It's the name officially bestowed upon the ailment by the World Health Organization. WHO's task was to find a name that didn't demonize a particular place, animal, individual, or group of people and which was also pronounceable. It's pronounced just like it sounds: Co-Vid-Nine-teen.

Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from, anyway?

The first cases were identified at the tail end of 2019 in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s Hubei province, when hospitals started seeing patients with severe pneumonia. Like the viruses that cause MERS and SARS, the new coronavirus appears to have originated in bats, but it’s not clear how the virus jumped from bats to humans or where the first infections occurred. Often, pathogens journey through an intermediary “animal reservoir”—bats infect the animals, and humans come into contact with some product from that animal. That could be milk or undercooked meat, or even mucus, urine, or feces. For example, MERS moved to humans through camels, and SARS came through civet cats sold at a live animal market in Guangzhou, China.

Scientists don’t know why some coronaviruses have made that jump while others haven’t. It may be that the viruses haven’t made it to animals that humans interact with, or that the viruses don’t have the right spike proteins, so they can’t attach to our cells. It’s also possible that these jumps happen more often than anyone realizes, but they go unnoticed because they don’t cause serious reactions.

How do coronaviruses even work?

Coronaviruses are divided into four groups called genera: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. These little invaders are zoonotic, meaning they can spread between animals and humans; gamma and delta coronaviruses mostly infect birds, while alpha and beta mostly reside in mammals.

Researchers first isolated human coronaviruses in the 1960s, and for a long time they were considered pretty mild. Mostly, if you got a coronavirus, you’d end up with a cold. But the most famous coronaviruses are the ones that jumped from animals to humans.

Coronaviruses are made up of one strip of RNA, and that genetic material is surrounded by a membrane studded with little spike proteins. (Under a microscope, those proteins stick up in a ring around the top of the virus, giving it its name—“corona” is Latin for “crown.”) When the virus gets into the body, those spike proteins attach to host cells, and the virus injects that RNA into the cell’s nucleus, hijacking the replication machinery there to make more virus. Infection ensues.

The severity of that infection depends on a couple of factors. One is what part of the body the virus tends to latch onto. Less serious types of coronavirus, like the ones that cause the common cold, tend to attach to cells higher up in the respiratory tract—places like your nose or throat. But their more gnarly relatives attach in the lungs and bronchial tubes, causing more serious infections. The MERS virus, for example, binds to a protein found in the lower respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract, so that, in addition to causing respiratory problems, the virus often causes kidney failure.

The other thing that contributes to the severity of the infection is the proteins the virus produces. Different genes mean different proteins; more virulent coronaviruses may have spike proteins that are better at latching onto human cells. Some coronaviruses produce proteins that can fend off the immune system, and when patients have to mount even larger immune responses, they get sicker.

Can people be immune to the new coronavirus?

Viruses that spread quickly usually come with lower mortality rates and vice versa.

As the virus is an entirely new strain, it is believed that there is no existing immunity in anyone it will encounter.

Some level of immunity will naturally develop over time, but this means that those with compromised immune systems, such as the elderly or sick, are most at risk of becoming severely ill or dying from the coronavirus.

Although the total number of deaths has now exceeded those recorded during the 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the current mortality rate is much lower than that of SARS.

The coronavirus mortality rate stands at 2.4 percent, while SARS killed 9.6 percent of those infected.

How can people protect themselves? Are face masks useful?

In terms of self-protection and containing the virus, experts agree that is important to wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap; cover your face with a tissue or your elbow when coughing or sneezing; visit a doctor if you have symptoms; and avoid direct contact with live animals in affected areas.

While face masks are popular, scientists doubt their effectiveness against airborne viruses.

Masks may provide some protection to you and others, but because they are loose and made of permeable material, droplets can still pass through.

Many countries have advised people travelling back from China to self-quarantine for at least two weeks.

How to Protect Yourself Against the Coronavirus

Wash your hands.

Washing your hands regularly is the best way to protect yourself from the coronavirus — assuming you’re doing it correctly. The CDC recommends getting your hands wet with warm or cold water; lathering your entire hands, including under the nails, with soap; scrubbing your hands for 20 seconds; rinsing with clean water; and finally, either letting your hands air-dry or using a clean towel.

“Wash them especially well if you’re about to eat,” Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, wrote in the New York Times. “Wash them after you’ve blown your nose, coughed or sneezed. Make it routine that all members of the household wash their hands when they get home.”

It’s also not a bad idea to carry around a hand sanitizer for times when you’re not near a sink, though you should make sure it contains at least 60 percent alcohol. However, experts stress that washing your hands thoroughly — and frequently — is the best preventative measure.

Stop touching your face!

In addition to washing your hands frequently, the CDC also recommends that you avoid touching your face — specifically, your eyes, nose, and mouth, which are entry portals for coronavirus and other germs. If an infected person coughs or sneezes on a surface, and you touch that contaminated surface and then touch your facial mucous membranes — the eyes, nose, and mouth — you could become infected.

Stock up on prescriptions and household supplies.

According to the New York Times, experts are recommending stocking up on at least a month’s worth of prescription or over-the-counter medicine, in the event that you have to self-quarantine. Experts are also advising buying extra shelf-stable food, cleaning supplies, and other necessary household items.

Practice social distancing.

If there’s an outbreak in your area, experts say it’s wise to practice “social distancing” measures to mitigate the spread of viruses. These measures typically entail keeping your distance from other people — the CDC recommends standing at least six feet away, if possible — and avoiding crowded spaces. (Some countries like France have already implemented such measures, like banning gatherings of more than 1,000 people.)

If you’re sick …

Be cautious: If you experience any cold or flulike symptoms, you should stay home (if you can afford to.) And even if you aren’t sick, it’s a good idea to work from home if you can. As Katie Heaney noted on the Cut, every time we leave our home, we increase our risk of exposure and transmission, potentially unknowingly.

According to the Times, if you think you have the coronavirus, you should reach out to your doctor or local health department, or follow the instructions on the CDC’s website.

If you’re pregnant …

As of now, the CDC does not recommend specific precautions for pregnant women, as there’s a lack of “information from published scientific reports about susceptibility of pregnant women to COVID-19.” However, the CDC notes that because pregnant women’s immune systems are in flux, it’s possible they could be more susceptible. “It makes sense that a pregnant woman would be at higher risk of complications from this virus than a nonpregnant one,” Dr. Steven Gordon, M.D., an infectious-disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, told the New York Times last week.

If you have a chronic illness, are elderly, or have a compromised immune system …

While COVID-19 will cause mild symptoms in the majority of infected people, Jan Carette, an associate professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, says that the elderly — especially those with chronic conditions, like hypertension or diabetes — are at greater risk for more severe disease. In this case, he recommends that those who are especially susceptible practice the above precautions as well as avoid people who display flulike symptoms.

If you’re traveling …

If you have upcoming travel plans, it’s a good idea to stay up-to-date on the CDC’s travel warnings for specific countries. In general, it’s safest to avoid nonessential travel to countries with a sustained COVID-19 presence; right now, this includes Iran, China, South Korea, and Italy. For individuals who are especially susceptible to viral infections, including the elderly and those with existing medical conditions, the CDC advises avoiding travel to Japan as well.

Currently, the CDC doesn’t have any additional recommendations for domestic travel, though this could change as the virus spreads further in the United States. But according to the CDC’s website, the risk of infection on an airplane is low. “Because of how air circulates and is filtered on airplanes, most viruses and other germs do not spread easily,” they write. However, they recommend that travelers wash their hands frequently and avoid contact with sick passengers.

10 Tips For Preparing To Stay At Home Due To The Coronavirus

1. You can eat normal, tasty, healthy foods.

Just because you’re stocking up doesn’t mean you have to live on nonperishable foods and canned vegetables. That’s going to get tiresome real quick, and there are plenty of ways to eat the things you normally would.Fill your freezer with fresh, flavorful soups. Keep pasta in your pantry and tomato sauce in your freezer. Think about the foods you would want to eat on a typical day; usually there’s a way to keep those around. Personally, I froze a big batch of taco soup and a bunch of marinated salmon, and made a crunchy quinoa salad that lasts well in the fridge for the week. I also bought eggs, sweet potatoes, peanut butter, hummus, carrots, and a bunch of other things — normal staples for my diet that will keep for a decent length of time.

2. And remember that food isn’t just about staying alive.

You don’t just need well-balanced meals! You need Cheez-Its, peanut butter cups, popcorn, gummy bears...really whatever snacks you’ll be craving if you’re stuck inside for a while. There has never been a better time to have ingredients around to bake cookies. And if you’re out here thinking meal prep time would be a good time to get super healthy and only eat lentils, get real. These are trying times. Buy the damn candy.

3. Avoid being too isolated.

Being forced to stay inside might sound like an introvert’s dream come true, but when it’s in the midst of a worldwide epidemic and everyone is panicking, it’s not such a fun and chill time. It took me one day stuck at home to get lonely and stir-crazy.Check in with your people. Get on the phone or FaceTime and call your family and friends with some regularity — you’ll probably need it, and so will they.

And if someone you know actually gets quarantined, or gets infected with the virus, be there for them as much as you (safely) can. Call them, or just send a playlist, some memes, or links. And even if you can’t go hang out with them IRL, consider cooking them a meal and leaving it outside their door, which is safe to do.“People [need to] know who to call if they do start getting symptoms, [and] know there is somebody who is going to check in on them, that they’re not just going to be isolated and forgotten about,” said Hawryluck. “If you’re afraid you’re going to get sick, what you really need and want is to know that somebody is going to care for you.”

4. Get a little fitness in.

There are plenty of workouts you can do from the comfort of your own home, and doing so can seriously help your mental health.Here are a bunch of exercises you can do without any equipment, and YouTube has tons of channels that offer instruction in everything from yoga to Pilates to strength training.And if you can still go outside, nothing beats a walk. Just avoid big groups of people.

5. Clean your home.

Not only does it protect against the spread of illness, it also makes being cooped up in your home a lot more pleasant. Here’s a big list of spring cleaning chores you may have been putting off.

6. Go online, but beware.When the SARS epidemic broke out in 2002, Facebook, Twitter, and even Myspace did not yet exist. Now, people are far more digitally connected, and the ability to keep in touch over social media and video chat can have major benefits on mental health during isolation. “It shortens distances between people,” Hawryluck said.But the internet also creates issues that didn’t exist during SARS — namely, the spread of misinformation.“People are afraid, and that’s okay — we are human, there are things in our lives that are going to scare us, and this is one of them,” said Hawryluck. “But how we handle that fear, I think fear can be lessened if we have accurate information.”Here’s a running list of misinformation about the coronavirus to keep on hand as you peruse social media. Also, be wary of those hawking fake cures online or trying to infect your computer with malware by sending you suspicious coronavirus-themed emails.

7. Plan out your entertainment.

Watch the news, for sure, but don’t just stay glued to cable news. “The worst thing people can do is sit around and watch TV or watch their screens and look for the hourly update of numbers,” Hawryluck said. “I think that just exaggerates the symptoms of fear and its effects.”

You know all those shows and movies you’ve been meaning to watch but never get around to? Make a list — yes, an actual list — of the titles, and you’ll never run out of things to watch.But if spending too much time looking at screens is driving you nuts, shut it down.Get out a bunch of books from your library. Pull out the board games and puzzles. Have some craft supplies on hand, if that’s your thing.

8. Seek professional help if you’re really struggling.Whether you’ve been to a therapist before or are just realizing you might need to see one, seeking help with your mental health doesn’t need to wait till you can go outside again. Lots of therapists offer sessions over the phone or video chat. Here are a bunch of tips for how to find a therapist. There are also apps to help you with your mental health.

9. If you’re working from home, do it right. Working from home sounds like the dream — pajamas all day, slacking off, working from the couch! — but it can get bleak and unproductive pretty quickly if it’s not approached the right way.

10. Remember to stay healthy and practice good hygiene.

Information is power, and having the right info can be helpful in stopping yourself from freaking out. You don’t need to go overboard on research, but it’s a good idea to be aware of what you should do if you do think you’ve contracted the coronavirus.

And perhaps the easiest way to stay healthy is to maintain proper hygiene. You don’t need a face mask (unless you’re sick), but you should be washing your hands regularly (and remember, soap and water is just as effective as hand sanitizer).Once that’s done, just try to take it easy (and maybe order some dumplings to support your favorite Chinese restaurant). These are tough, uncertain times, and the best thing we all can do is be kind to ourselves and our neighbors as we all go through it.

#corona #coronavirus

1 note · View note

mainsstaff · 2 years ago

Text

Bf3 tiltshift

The compounds did not kill the yeast, but biofilms are sources of human disease, so being able to inhibit them is important. Two different bacteria, Pseudomonas and Serratia, found in the ear of an opossum, produced compounds that inhibited the ability of Candida albicans yeast to form a biofilm.īiofilms - a network of physically closely associated bacteria usually attached to a surface - are one way disease-causing bacteria thrive and establish infections. They also yielded the most promising compound. Image by Steve Hillebrand/ US Fish and Wildlife Service This is an opossum (if you've never seen one before). Of the 3,659 types of bacteria isolated from the animals, 39% (1,425) were isolated from opossums. Opossum carcasses were the most frequently encountered roadkill, and they proved to be a rich source of bacteria, too. After that, they looked at the chemicals' ability to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria and yeast. Then they isolated bacteria and grew them in the laboratory, after which they purified chemicals produced by the bacteria and identified the genes that produced them. These adventurous researchers swabbed the ears, eyes, mouths, noses, GI tracts, and rectums of armadillos, deer, opossums, raccoons, squirrels, and skunks. Since wild animals are hard to capture, they sought and received permission from the State of Arkansas to get a scientific collectors' permit to analyze roadkill for their study. And because they wanted to find the most diverse types of bacteria, they thought of animals - but not just any lab animal - wild animals, with the potential to have encountered and carried many different types of bacteria. The scientists hypothesized that they could find some of those protective bacteria, isolate compounds from them, and some would prove to have antibiotic properties. Some strains of Escherichia coli, for example, produce toxins called colicins that kill other kinds of E. Part of this community includes normal bacteria that don't cause infection, but protect us from other disease-causing bacteria. Roadkill might seem like an unlikely reservoir of antibiotics, but there is solid reasoning behind their choice.ĭon't Miss: The Next Big Antibiotic Could Come from the Gut of an InsectĮveryone, humans and animals included, has a community of bacteria that lives in and on them. Cichewicz, principal investigator of the Natural Products Discovery Group and director of the Institute for Natural Products Applications and Research Technologies, and was published in the Journal of Natural Products. The research - which discovered a potential antibiotic found in the ear of a dead opossum - was led by OU's Robert H. A team of scientists from the University of Oklahoma is scooping up roadkill and searching for bacteria on them that might yield the world's next antibiotic. Our quest to find new antibiotics has taken a turn - a turn down the road, that is.

#Bf3 tiltshift

0 notes

nuadox · 2 years ago

Text

Fungus simultaneously combats two of the worst threats to banana plantation yields

- By Ricardo Muniz , Agência FAPESP -

The banana borer Cosmopolites sordidus and the disease Fusarium wilt, caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum, are among the most harmful pests that threaten the livelihoods of banana growers, who face major challenges in attempting to control them.

The former is a species of weevil that bores into the plant’s rhizome (the underground stem that produces roots and shoots), weakening its root system, reducing nutrient absorption and significantly lowering yield. The adult insect also spreads and increases infection by other pathogens. Fusarium wilt, popularly known as Panama disease, is a fungal disease that blocks the flow of water and nutrients, spreading rapidly and eventually killing the plant.

Commercial plantations require a combination of management practices to mitigate their effects, including biological control. A soil-borne fungus that has not yet been studied in depth in Brazil or elsewhere and can be used for this purpose was recently isolated by scientists at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and Bioversity International’s Regional Office for the Americas in Colombia, with the support of researchers at the São Paulo’s Agency for Agribusiness Technology (APTA) in the Ribeira Valley region and the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC). The fungus is called Beauveria caledonica and it was found in the Ribeira Valley, a major banana-growing area in the south of São Paulo state.

The study was supported by FAPESP. An article reporting its findings is published in Pest Management Science. The paper describes how B. caledonica (Bc) infects and kills C. sordidus as well as inhibits Fusarium wilt. The full scientific name of the fungus that causes this disease is Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc).

“The paper shows the dual role performed by Bc for the first time. We isolated the fungus from naturally infected banana borers and tested it against two of the main pests affecting bananas,” said Jeanne Scardini Marinho-Prado, second author of the article. She is an agronomist with a PhD in entomology from the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) in Minas Gerais.

The group found Bc to be more effective in the biocontrol of adult banana borers than B. bassiana, a similar fungus currently used to combat the insect in the field. “We isolated Bc from adult borers collected on the plantation and produced a totally biodegradable emulsion of vegetable oil containing its conidia [spores],” said Gabriel Moura Mascarin, first author of the article and the main person responsible for the formulation in emulsifiable oil. Mascarin has a PhD in insect pathology and microbial control from the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP) and the US Department of Agriculture’s Crop Bioprotection Research Unit in Peoria, Illinois.

The oil makes the fungus stick to the insect and facilitates its infection. The group also discovered that the fungus produces a secondary compound called oosporein, which intensifies its action against Foc. “Only now are scientists aware of the antagonistic effects of B. caledonica and its metabolite oosporein against Foc,” said Marinho-Prado, currently a researcher at EMBRAPA Environment, one of EMBRAPA’s decentralized units.

Oosporein was detected and quantified by nuclear MRI and mass spectrometry. In a laboratory assay against Foc, cell-free filtrates derived from a culture broth of Bc containing oosporein strongly reduced conidial viability and inhibited fungal germination of Foc.

“The study shows that commercial banana groves infested with borer weevils can be home to a highly specialized community of entomopathogenic fungi,” Marinho-Prado said. The soil is an important reservoir for these fungi, which can parasitize and kill or incapacitate insects. “Understanding the interaction between C. sordidus and entomopathogenic fungi can point to their relations with other soil microorganisms and is crucial to the development of fungus-based biopesticides.” No commercial products based on B. caledonica exist as yet, she added.

Development of biopesticides with strains that act more powerfully against the target insect, by selection in the laboratory, formulation, novel application or genetic manipulation, can make this microorganism more competitive for use in pest control programs and promote healthier banana groves.

The paper is signed by Mascarin, Marinho-Prado and Márcia Regina Assalin (EMBRAPA Environment); Lucas Gelin Martins, Erik Sobrinho Braga and Ljubica Tasic (UNICAMP); Miguel Dita (Bioversity International); and Rogerio Biaggioni Lopes (EMBRAPA Genetic Resources and Biotechnology).

The article “Natural occurrence of Beauveria caledonica, pathogenicity to Cosmopolites sordidus and antifungal activity against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense” is at: doi.org/10.1002/ps.7063.

This text was originally published by FAPESP Agency according to Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND. Read the original here.

Read Also

Calling on natural defences to turn back banana pandemic

#banana #agriculture #fungus #fruits #plants #food #biology

0 notes

fumpkins · 2 years ago

Text

Concern grows that human monkeypox outbreak will establish virus in animals outside Africa | Science

Eleven days after being bitten by one of her pet prairie dogs, a 3-year-old girl in Wisconsin on 24 May 2003 became the first person outside of Africa to be diagnosed with monkeypox. Two months later, her parents and 69 other people in the United States had suspected or confirmed cases of this disease, which is caused by a relative of the much deadlier smallpox virus. The monkeypox virus is endemic in parts of Africa, and rodents imported from Ghana had apparently infected captive prairie dogs, North American animals, when an animal distributor in Texas housed them together.

The outbreak now underway has affected more people outside of Africa than ever before—nearly 1300 cases as of 7 June, on multiple continents, many of them men who have sex with men. But like the 2003 episode, today’s surge has raised a possibility that makes researchers gulp: Monkeypox virus could take up permanent residence in wildlife outside of Africa, forming a reservoir that could lead to repeated human outbreaks.

No animal reservoir currently exists outside of Africa, but the U.S. outbreak of 2003 was a close call, some scientists suspect, especially because nearly 300 of the animals from Ghana and the exposed prairie dogs were never found. “We narrowly escaped having monkeypox establish itself in a wild animal population” in North America, suggests Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who long has studied the disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the end, however, surveys of wild animals in Wisconsin and Illinois never found monkeypox virus, none of the infected humans passed on the disease to other people, and worries about this exotic outbreak evaporated.

Will North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia—all of which have reported monkeypox cases in this outbreak—be similarly fortunate this time?

Viruses frequently pingpong between humans and other species. Although COVID-19 is widely thought to have resulted from SARS-CoV-2 jumping from a bat or other host into people, humans have, in “reverse zoonoses,” also infected white-tailed deer, minks, cats, and dogs with the virus. One study in Ohio found antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in more than one-third of 360 wild deer sampled. And in past centuries, when humans carried plague and yellow fever to new continents, those pathogens created reservoirs in rodents and monkeys, respectively—which later infected humans again.

As this outbreak of monkeypox expands, the virus has an unprecedented opportunity to establish itself in non-African species, which could infect humans and provide greater opportunity for more dangerous variants to evolve. “Monkeypox reservoirs in wild animals outside of Africa is a scary scenario,” says Bertram Jacobs, a virologist at Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, who studies vaccinia, the poxvirus that served as the smallpox vaccine and helped eradicate that devastating virus from humans.

Public health officials in several countries have advised people who have monkeypox lesions to avoid contact with their pets until they heal. Some 80% of the cases have occurred in Europe, and the European Food Safety Authority said no pets or wild animals had been infected as of 24 May. But it added that “close collaboration between human and veterinary public health authorities is needed to manage exposed pets and prevent the disease from being transmitted to wildlife.”

The possibility that humans infected with monkeypox virus will spread it to wildlife outside of Africa “warrants serious concern,” says William Karesh, a veterinarian at the EcoHealth Alliance who last week spoke about this possibility at a consultation on monkeypox research organized by the World Health Organization. For now, he says, the limited number of human cases reduces the odds. But pet rodents are a particular worry, as is the sheer number of wild ones—they make up 40% of all mammals—that frequently raid trash and could become infected by contaminated waste. “That’s a lot of opportunity,” he says.

Studies have yet to pinpoint the African reservoir of the monkeypox virus. Although a lab in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1958 first identified it in research monkeys from Asia, scientists now believe the primates caught it from an African source. All human cases since the first one was reported in 1970, in the DRC (then Zaire), could be tied to the virus spilling over from animals in Africa.

So far, however, only six wild animals trapped in Africa have yielded the virus: three rope squirrels, a Gambian rat, a shrew, and a sooty mangabey monkey. Antibodies to the monkeypox virus are most abundant in African squirrels. “We still poorly understand the current reservoir other than it’s rodents,” says Grant McFadden, a poxvirus researcher who is also based at ASU.

But it’s clear that monkeypox can infect many other kinds of animals in the wild and captivity. A 1964 outbreak in a Rotterdam, Netherlands, zoo sickened giant anteaters, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, a gibbon, and a marmoset. Researchers have intentionally infected many lab animals, including rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, and chickens, although the virus doesn’t reliably cause disease in several of them.

For many viruses, a lock-and-key relationship between viral surface proteins and receptors on host cells determines which animals it can infect; the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, for example, latches onto angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, a protein that studs a variety of cells in humans, minks, cats, and many other species. But poxviruses don’t seem to require specific host receptors, enabling many to infect a wide range of mammalian cells. Vaccinia, the smallpox vaccine virus, can even infect fruit flies in addition to cows and people, notes David Evans, a poxvirus researcher at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Bernard Moss, a virologist at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has posited that some poxviruses have proteins on their surfaces that form a “hydrophobic face,” a water-repelling area that can bind nonspecifically to hydrophilic cell membranes and initiate the infection process.

But whether a poxvirus can copy itself and, ultimately, persist in a species to create a reservoir depends on how well it fends off the host’s immune attacks. Poxviruses have a relatively large complement of genes, about 200, and roughly half undermine a host’s immune response. “Some viruses run and hide or are stealthy, avoiding direct contact with elements of the immune system,” McFadden says. “Poxviruses by and large stand up and fight.”

Their defense against host immunity appears to rely heavily on a family of genes scattered around their genomes that code for poorly understood proteins containing domains known as ankyrin repeats. Poxvirus proteins containing these repeats act as “molecular flypaper,” Evans says, glomming onto host proteins involved with coordinating the immune response. “Orthopoxviruses have these arrays of ankyrin repeats, and most of them, we don’t really know what they target,” Evans says. “But the bottom line is those probably hold the key to trying to understand why it is some of these viruses have the host range that they do.”

Variola, the smallpox virus, appears to have lost many of these immune-evasion genes. It only persists in humans and has no animal reservoir, which was why the global vaccination campaign could eradicate it. Monkeypox is clearly more promiscuous. But the many questions that remain about it means there’s no telling whether it will create reservoirs in non-African wildlife. “One of the challenges has been a lack of interest,” says Lisa Hensley, a microbiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who began doing monkeypox research in 2001 as part of a U.S. Army lab.

Hensley, who worked on monkeypox at NIAID for nearly a decade and collaborated with Rimoin, urges people to keep an open mind about how the virus behaves and what it might do next. “We’re recognizing that this is a disease we need to worry about and that we really don’t know as much as we think we know.”

New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2022/06/09/concern-grows-that-human-monkeypox-outbreak-will-establish-virus-in-animals-outside-africa-science/

#Africa #animals #Concern #Establish #grows #Human #Monkeypox #outbreak #science #virus

0 notes

behealthy99 · 3 years ago

Text

The media is creating a scare around a coronavirus that hasn’t infected humans yet

New Post has been published on https://behealthy99.com/the-media-is-creating-a-scare-around-a-coronavirus-that-hasnt-infected-humans-yet/

The media is creating a scare around a coronavirus that hasn’t infected humans yet

Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology recently released a non-peer-reviewed study on a new type of coronavirus called NeoCoV, the coverage of which has put people in a tizzy. This is when the study clearly mentions that there is a rare possibility of the virus, which is found in bats in South Africa, transmitting to humans.

Several news websites, such as News18, Times Now and The Tribune, in their coverage of the study, highlighted that NeoCoV had the potential to kill one in every three infected people, without mentioning that no human has been infected with the virus yet and the study has not been peer-reviewed either.

Health experts said although bat coronaviruses have to be taken seriously, the fears that media reports have elicited are unwarranted. Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, epidemiologist and public health policy expert, told FactChecker that although the research has significance in tracking potential spillover emergencies, news articles have taken it out of context.

Unwarranted fears

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses. While there are hundreds of coronaviruses in animals, only some jump to humans – called a zoonotic spillover. There were four human coronaviruses before 2002 which were known to cause mild illness in humans. They were not considered to be highly dangerous to humans until the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in the Guangdong province in China.

Skip ahead another 10 years, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus or MERS-CoV emerged in West Asian countries and Africa with an estimated fatality rate of 35%, according to the World Health Organization. MERS-CoV transmitted to humans through an animal reservoir in camels and was identified in September 2012, according to theNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The current Covid-19 pandemic is the seventh type of coronavirus to infect humans.

Neoromicia, also called NeoCoV, was first detected in bats in 2011 and unlike the current SARS-CoV-2, it has not yet been found in humans. “Neo means new. So the investigators gave a fancy name to a coronavirus found in bats in South Africa. Fruit bats everywhere harbour Beta Coronaviruses,” Dr TJ John, virologist and former professor at the Christian Medical College, Vellore told FactChecker. The high similarity in genome sequencing makes it a close relative of MERS.

The Wuhan study warns about the possibility of a single mutation in the NeoCoV genome that could possibly infect human cells. While MERS-CoV and NeoCoV have a high resemblance, they use different receptors to infect cells. Besides, without this particular mutation, the two viruses do not efficiently interact with the human angiotensin converting enzymes ACE2.

“This study seems like a standard study which many scientists conduct,” said Lahariya. “This virus is a close relative of MERS which has a high mortality. Although this virus does not have the potential to use human ACE2 receptors to infect humans, artificially created mutations could enhance NeoCoV’s efficiency to interact with them.”

Minimal risk

He explained that it is entirely an assumption to say those mutations will happen, the virus will transmit to humans and that will lead to high mortality. Dr Shashank Joshi, Chair (Southeast Asia), International Diabetes Foundation, and Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, Scientific Advisor, Indian Medical Association, also tweeted to clarify that the virus cannot infect or kill any human unless a new mutation occurs.

Neo Cov demystified 1 NeoCov is an old virus closely related to MERS Cov which enter cells via DPP4 receptors 2. What’s new : Neo cov can use ace2 receptors of bats but they can’t use human ace2 receptor unless a new mutation occurs

Everything else is hype 🙏

— Dr. Shashank Joshi (@AskDrShashank) January 28, 2022

NeoCov is all over the news. Some facts, before we panic.

This “not so new virus” was identified around 2013 in bats in S Africa, while looking for ancestors of the MERS CoV.

Note: This virus has not infected man, and has not killed anyone.https://t.co/A6y73xWg9x

— Rajeev Jayadevan (@RajeevJayadevan) January 28, 2022

When asked if there was a possibility that the virus, which has not infected a human yet, can infect humans in the future, John said the chances were minimal, but not zero. “We have no evidence that this virus is a threat to humans,” he said. Bat viruses do not easily jump to humans – bats are always arboreal (living in trees). But their droppings (guano) and saliva contain these coronaviruses, John concluded.

This article first appeared on FactChecker.in, a publication of the data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit IndiaSpend.

#News

0 notes

blog-cosmosuniverse1 · 3 years ago

Text

‘Sky News’ Documentary: What Really Happened in Wuhan?

Australian journalist and “Sky News” host Sharri Markson’s explosive documentary, “What Really Happened in Wuhan?” features multiple experts who believe beyond any reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China In October 2019, the World Military Games was held in Wuhan, China; reports emerged of athletes becoming sick with a respiratory virus and symptoms that are now well recognized as COVID-19 It would be months before the U.S. took action, but evidence strongly suggests the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in August or September 2019, and that U.S. intelligence had knowledge of a problem occurring in Wuhan in November 2019 WIV’s online virus databases disappeared from the internet beginning September 12, 2019 — 22,000 coronavirus samples, gone That same day, WIV heightened its security and issued a tender to replace its air conditioning system. A month later, a communications blackout occurred Three people working at WIV became sick with COVID-like symptoms in October 2019; WIV also bought a coronavirus PCR testing machine November 6, 2019 If officials had reacted quickly, said David Asher, former COVID-19 investigator for the U.S. State Department, “The whole world would have been different. It would have been like stopping 9/11 before it happened”

In October 2019, the World Military Games were held in Wuhan, China. Reports emerged of athletes becoming sick with a respiratory virus and symptoms that are now well recognized as COVID-19.1 It would be months before the U.S. took action, but evidence strongly suggests that U.S. intelligence had knowledge of a problem occurring in Wuhan in November 2019.If they had reacted quickly, said David Asher, former COVID-19 investigator for the U.S. State Department, “The whole world would have been different. It would have been like stopping 9/11 before it happened.”2He was speaking to Australian journalist and “Sky News” host Sharri Markson, whose explosive documentary, “What Really Happened in Wuhan?” features multiple experts who believe beyond any reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.3The illness circulating at the World Military Games, among athletes who later returned home to more than 100 different countries, is just one piece of the evidence that, cumulatively, may solve the mystery of COVID-19’s origins.First Cluster October 2019: Three WIV Scientists Became Ill A series of events occurred in late 2019 that point to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) as the epicenter of the virus. According to Markson, three people working at WIV became sick with COVID-like symptoms in October 2019. This is believed to be the first cluster of cases. Markson also spoke with former President Donald Trump, who stated there were reports that body bags were seen outside of WIV.4 Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state, told Markson that he’s seen data suggesting SARS-CoV-2 may have leaked from the lab in late summer — July or August — 2019,5 while other information suggests the leak may have occurred in September. WIV is well known for its controversial gain-of-function (GOF) research on bat coronaviruses.Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., the director of WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, also known as “bat woman,” has been studying bat-borne viruses since 2004, including SARS-like coronaviruses.According to the World Society for Virology, “One of her great contributions is to uncover genetically diverse SARS-like coronaviruses in bats with her international collaborators and provide unequivocal evidence that bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV.”6Part of WIV’s GOF research involved using humanized mice for experiments to determine which coronaviruses could infect humans, as well as research to make viruses that weren’t able to infect humans do just that.7According to Markson, it’s stated that over more than a decade, Zhengli’s research team collected thousands of bat samples in China and Africa, “searching for the origins of SARS, as well as isolating and characterizing many new viruses.”8 But WIV’s online virus databases disappeared from the internet beginning September 12, 2019 — 22,000 coronavirus samples, gone.9That same day, WIV heightened its security and issued a tender to replace its air conditioning system. A month later, a communications blackout occurred, during which there was no cellphone or signal activity for about two weeks. It’s a circumstance that’s difficult to explain — unless the Chinese government was trying to deal with a disaster before it became public.10 Also difficult to explain is this: WIV bought a coronavirus PCR testing machine November 6, 2019.11 Increasing Evidence of COVID Origins Coverup Markson spoke with Chinese defector Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in Chinese prison for standing up to Beijing and then defected to the U.S. He maintained his contacts, however, and said he knew the Chinese government was doing experiments with biological weapons and thought they might use the World Military Games as an opportunity to spread the virus, since many foreigners would show up there.Jingsheng passed on this information to U.S. intelligence as early as October 2019. Asher, a veteran weapons investigator who led a U.S. taskforce into the origins of COVID-19, uncovered information that Washington sat on classified intelligence

information from November 2019. He learned of the information in November 2020 — a year later.Meanwhile, many of the people who were most involved in the initial days, either having been infected or reporting on the scene, have disappeared. In early 2020, a journalist in China was sending out reports from hospitals on a daily basis; he heard the government was covering up illnesses, so he started posting videos. Then he disappeared.There’s also Huang Yan Ling, a researcher at WIV who worked closely with Zhengli. Many believe Ling is patient zero for the COVID-19 pandemic, but she’s now missing. Her profile and biography are missing from WIV’s website, but, after rumors surfaced that she was presumed dead, the Chinese government posted a notice on WIV’s site saying she’s alive and well.12No proof was offered, however, and if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wanted to stop the rumors, the first thing they would have done was have her schedule a public appearance.Speaking with Markson, Miles Yu, former principal China policy adviser to the U.S. State department, said it would have been a triumphant thing for the Chinese government to let Ling speak, but she never did. She disappeared.“Anyone the government doesn’t like, they disappear,” Yu said, adding that the CCP is a regime not only capable of doing these things, but they do them with great pride.13 John Ratcliffe, former director of U.S. national intelligence, also spoke with Markson, stating:14“If there was really no blame here, if this were really some naturally occurring virus because someone ate a bat from a wet market, China wouldn’t have done the things that they did. The Chinese Communist Party would not have shut down Wuhan. They would not have silenced doctors and scientists and journalists and disappeared some of them.”Proof of Live Bats at WIV World Health Organization investigators, including Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance president, claimed the suggestion of live bats at the WIV in China was a conspiracy theory.15 The dismissal was part of the rationale used to bolster the idea that SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus that jumped from animals to humans, possibly due to a wet market in Wuhan, China.Anyone who suggested otherwise — including that the virus may actually be a manmade product that escaped from a lab — was censored, discredited and called a conspiracy theorist. Markson revealed another bombshell, however — proof via video footage taken inside the facility that WIV kept live bats in cages.16Meanwhile, Daszak has close ties to WIV through EcoHealth Alliance, which funded GOF research at WIV17 and Zhengli, which is why his participation in the WHO investigation into COVID-19’s origins was highly conflicted from the start. Further, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, gave funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn funneled it to WIV.18While investigating her book, “What Really Happened in Wuhan?” Markson discovered that Daszak was invited to brief the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence February 3, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic. Ironically, misinformation was a key topic at the meeting, Markson said.Fauci Lied About Funding Wuhan Coronavirus Research In an April 17, 2020, White House press briefing, Fauci said the science was "totally consistent with a jump from an animal to a human."19 Two days after this press briefing, Daszak wrote to Fauci thanking him for his help in deflecting the lab origin theory.20 Not long after, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement April 30, 2020, saying that "SARS-CoV-2 was of natural origin.”21Many aren’t aware that Fauci has long supported controversial GOF research, which he spoke openly about at a hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at the U.S. Senate, held April 26, 2012. Fauci spoke favorably of dual use research of concern, or DURC, stating, “the

risk-benefit ratio of such research clearly tips towards benefiting society.”22According to Markson, Fauci was “up to his neck” funding coronavirus research at WIV, with 60 such projects funded. “Then he wrote a paper where he said gain-of-function research was worth the risk of a pandemic, and that he had even funded coronavirus research in conjunction with the Chinese military,” she said.23Daszak, meanwhile, was also the mastermind behind the publication of a scientific statement published in The Lancet in March 202024 condemning such inquiries as "conspiracy theory,"25 which was then relied on by the media to "debunk" evidence showing the pandemic virus most likely originated from a laboratory.Daszak then ended up on both the WHO investigation into COVID-19s origins and The Lancet's COVID-19 commission,26 despite the glaring conflicts of interest.Increasing questions are also being asked about what type of research was being conducted at WIV, which relied on French experts to build the laboratory, which was supposed to be a center of international collaboration. However, France has no role in running the facility27 and, according to Markson, “the French were immediately kicked out” of the lab after it was built, raising alarm bells with French intelligence.28It’s believed the French were pushed out because of the Chinese military’s interest in the work being done at WIV, which suggests that they were working on biological warfare or biological warfare defense.29 According to Asher, “My concern was that the Chinese were doing research in, as we learned later, quite uncontrolled circumstances that was most definitely related to biological warfare ambitions in the future."30SARS-CoV-2 Is Modified to Infect Humans Markson also spoke with Nikolai Petrovsky, professor of endocrinology at Flinders University College of Medicine in Adelaide, Australia, is among those who has stated SARS-CoV-2 appears to be optimally designed to infect humans.31His team sought to identify a way by which animals might have co-mingled to give rise to SARS-CoV-2, but concluded that it could not be a naturally occurring virus. Petrovsky has previously stated it appears far more likely that the virus was created in a laboratory.32According to Petrovsky, SARS-CoV-2 is better adapted to infect humans than any animal, including bats, but his paper was rejected over and over again, without even being looked at. “Science is not about politics. It’s not about only finding nice things,” he told Markson. “It’s about finding the truth. What are the facts?”33Taken together, the facts are becoming overwhelming and, Pompeo said, “cumulative evidence points singularly to WIV.”34 Markson also brought up the fact that the World Health Organization is beholden to China.COVID-19 Origin Investigation Conflicted In February 2021, WHO cleared WIV and two other biosafety level 4 laboratories in Wuhan, China, of wrongdoing, saying these labs had nothing to do with the COVID-19 outbreak.35Only after backlash, including an open letter signed by 26 scientists demanding a full and unrestricted forensic investigation into the pandemic’s origins,36 did WHO enter damage control mode, with director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and 13 other world leaders joining the U.S. government in expressing “frustration with the level of access China granted an international mission to Wuhan.”37WHO’s allegiance to China was secured years earlier, when China secured WHO votes to ensure its candidates would become director-general. A Sunday Times investigation also revealed that WHO’s independence was severely compromised and its close ties to China allowed COVID-19 to spread in the early days of the pandemic while obfuscating the investigation into its origins.38Academics and public health officials have staunchly defended the natural-origin theory for SARS-CoV-2 since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, until finally, in May 2021, the U.S. government ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to look into COVID-19’s origins and, after 90 days,

produce a preliminary report.The classified report was delivered in August, but its results were reportedly inconclusive, with intelligence agencies unable to pinpoint whether COVID-19 has a natural or laboratory origin.39 But as Ratcliffe told Markson, there’s still more intelligence suggesting SARS-CoV-2 came from WIV that has yet to be declassified:40“And so I think the time has come for the Biden administration to declassify additional information. Again, more evidence — if you need it — that the Chinese Communist Party officials acted badly, bullied international officials, covered up intelligence and reporting on this.There is more intelligence out there and I'd like to see it declassified because it will create additional pressure not just on Chinese Communist Party officials but others that still continue to deny that China is the bad actor here."Investigation is also needed as to why intelligence agencies with access to this information didn’t act on it, which could have led to an entirely different outcome during the pandemic.

0 notes

xtruss · 3 years ago

Text

WHO-China Scientists Warn of Missing Key Studies Window

— Global Times Staff Reporters | Aug 25 2021

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

The US has failed at COVID-19 origins tracing and its intelligence report on the virus origins was a failed set-up and buck-passing report, although the full report has not been released yet, insiders said, after US media reports said the report was "inconclusive" in determining the cause of the pandemic.

Some international scientists who believe the critical window for key scientific study on the coronavirus origins is closing, stressed that the US' intelligence report having no new evidence has been expected by most scientists around the world, as its report was not conducted based on science and not in cooperation with China and other countries.

The Global Times learned from sources that the report tried to smear China as the culprit of the pandemic using second-hand and unreliable evidence to prove the "lab leak" theory, a hypothesis even US scientific institutions and allies find far-fetched, and to achieve its political purpose, the US also sought to clamp down on scientists and the WHO, rope in its allies, and coerce China's neighbors to join in its smear campaign against China.

At Wednesday's media briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that US' virus tracing report compiled by its intelligence agencies was not for the truth of the virus origins, but to shift blame to China for its own mishandling of COVID-19 pandemic, and "such a set-up and political report cannot, of course, draw any scientific conclusions," Wang said.

He said that US officials' claim that there's a lack of information from China, was just an excuse to cover up the US' failure in virus tracing using intelligence.

Wang's remarks were made after US media reports cited US officials as saying that the intelligence report didn't yield a definitive conclusion on whether the coronavirus jumped to humans naturally, or via a lab leak, in part because of the "lack of detailed information from China."

A scientist with deep knowledge of COVID-19 origins tracing told the Global Times on Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the lack of new evidence from US intelligence analysts is what most scientists around the world expected, as tracing the origins of emerging diseases is difficult work that requires deep scientific understanding, experience working in the field and a close collaboration with the country that experienced the first known cases.

In the origins-tracing farce, the US acted dramatically —Global Times | August 25, 2021 | Through the lens. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

"The sooner we remove the political interference, and get back to allowing our scientists to work collaboratively with China, the sooner we'll find out exactly how this virus emerged," the scientist said.

Marion Koopmans, head of the viroscience department at the Erasmus MC Rotterdam in the Netherlands and a member of World Health Organization (WHO)-China joint study on virus origins, told the Global Times that she does not expect that US' report to provide conclusive answers without additional studies that need to be conducted in China and elsewhere.

In May, US President Joe Biden announced a jaw-dropping decision, demanding US intelligence officers look into the origins of the coronavirus, and he gave the task a deadline of 90 days.

Since the US kept insisting that the lab leak hypothesis should not be ruled out despite waves of scientists globally reiterating their natural origins stances, China on Tuesday for the first time officially demanded the WHO investigate Fort Detrick lab and the University of North Carolina through diplomatic channels, as Chen Xu, Permanent Representative of China to the UN Office at Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland, on Tuesday sent a letter to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the WHO, asking the WHO to conduct an investigation in the two US places for the next round of virus origins investigation in the spirit of fairness and justice. The letter is attached to a petition signed by more than 25 million Chinese netizens sent to the WHO demanding an investigation into the Fort Detrick lab.

After Chen submitted the letter, Fu Cong, director general of the Department of Arms Control and Disarmament of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sorted out several mysteries that the international community is concerned about the two labs at a Wednesday media briefing, and once again urged the US not to politicize the issue.

Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the United States, Fu said.

The window is closing

As the US has been exhausting all means to lure and coerce some scientists to serve its political agenda to suppress China by hyping unfounded topics like "China refuses to join the virus origins tracing work," most scientists are dissatisfied with and oppose the US in politicizing the issue, the Global Times learned from a source.

In a rare move, the international scientists of WHO's SARS-CoV-2 origins tracing mission to China on Wednesday warned that the window for key scientific study is closing due to months-long stalled follow-up work since WHO's March report, stressing the urgency for scientific collaborative study while removing political interference which has focused on the lab leak theory, tried to discredit scientists and drive a wedge among them.

In the most recent paper published in Nature, 11 international scientists including Dutch virologist Koopmans and EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak who undertook a 28-day mission to Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province in January on the global study of virus origins and completed a WHO report in March, said the March report was "meant to be the first step" in a process that has stalled. It warned the window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast, and any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible. "Understanding the origins of a devastating pandemic is a global priority, grounded in science," the piece said.

Koopmans told the Global Times on Wednesday that the authors of the Nature paper wanted to draw attention to the long delay between the initial work and the start of follow-up studies. "We now are approaching September, and there is no indication of when follow-up work could start. We feel that is taking too long and wanted to express that concern," she said.

In explaining the urgency of the next stage origins tracing work, Koopmans mentioned some time-sensitive studies such as the serological studies to stored blood bank samples collected in the later months of 2019 to identify the earlier pockets of cases.

She said WHO scientists talked to Hubei's blood banks during their stay and agreed to keep the samples, but "we also recommended similar studies in other regions inside and outside of China with early evidence for cases using the same methods, and that has not been arranged and may become impossible," she said.

Another author of the paper who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Wednesday that as time goes by, samples will get misplaced or degraded, people's memories will fade and antibodies will wane, making tracing work harder.

WHO-China team scientists warn window for virus origins inquiry closing fast amid political interference, hype of 'lab leak' theory. GT staff reporters | August 25, 2021 | Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Moreover, the origins tracing work is now closely connected with international relations. The anonymous author said the sooner we get closer to an answer on origins, the sooner international relations will begin to improve as the "focus on the lab leak theory may mean on-the-ground work gets held up by political arguments."

Ever since the scientists completed and released their report of the China mission in March, US-led Western countries have geared up political manipulation to smear China using the "lab leak" theory, which was deemed as extremely unlikely in the report, discredited the report and pressed international scientists to change their natural hypothesis views.

The anonymous author, also a team member of the WHO-China joint study team, said it's clear political messaging and interference have tried to undermine the report's findings, discredit scientists involved, and try to drive a wedge among them.

"We stand united as a team behind the work we did with our colleagues in China. We reaffirm our confidence in the results of our analyses on which pathways are most likely and which are not, and strongly believe in the importance of keeping this work as a scientific collaborative study, and removing political influences," he said.

Priorities for follow-up study

In the paper, the WHO scientist stated six priorities for follow-up studies to lead from the initial studies in China, highlighting critical trace-back of people and animals in regions inside and outside China that have the earliest evidence for circulation of the virus, and targeted surveys of possible reservoir or intermediate hosts. But it did not include the "lab leak" theory, a sharp contrast with the WHO's next-phase origins-tracing work proposal asking for "audits of laboratories in Wuhan" and Biden's 90-day intelligence report.

Koopmans said that the paper did not include "lab leak" hypothesis as initial work did not provide evidence for involvement of a laboratory, and in the paper, scientists said since the March report, "We have publicly called for any data supporting the lab leak hypothesis to be published and submitted to the WHO. None has, so far."

Chinese health officials and scientists have rejected repeatedly virus origins studies driven by "lab leak" hypothesis.

Liang Wannian, the team leader of the Chinese side of the WHO-convened joint expert team on origins tracing, told a media briefing this month that scientists reached the consensus of "extremely unlikely" after thorough study in Wuhan on the lab leak hypothesis, which should not be included in the next-phase study, considering the conclusions and evidence from the joint report.

In fact, the next-phase study should be carried out in multiple places worldwide covering countries such as where the Chinese horseshoe bat and pangolins reside, nations that lack sufficient testing, places with animal and human being data tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and who supplied Wuhan Huanan market through cold-chain logistics, Liang said.

WHO priorities for phase 2 studies. Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

0 notes

daniloqp · 3 years ago

Text

Within the risky engineering of the bat virus that unites America with Wuhan

https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/within-the-risky-engineering-of-the-bat-virus-that-unites-america-with-wuhan/

For Baric, this research began in the late 1990s. Coronaviruses were then considered low-risk, but Baric’s studies of the genetics that allowed viruses to enter human cells convinced him that some might be just a few mutations away from jumping the species barrier.

This foreboding was confirmed in 2002-03, when SARS broke out in southern China, infecting 8,000 people. As bad as it was, says Baric, we dodged a bullet with SARS. The disease did not spread from one person to another until a day later after severe symptoms appeared, which facilitated the corral through quarantine and contact tracking. Only 774 people died in that outbreak, but if it had been transmitted as easily as SARS-CoV-2, “we would have had a pandemic with a 10% mortality rate,” Baric says. “That’s how close humanity came.”

As tempting as it was to cancel SARS as a one-time event, in 2012 MERS emerged and began infecting people in the Middle East. “For me personally, it was a wake-up call that animal reservoirs had to have many more strains that are prepared for movement between species,” Baric says.

By then, Shi’s team, which had been taking bats in southern China for years, had discovered examples of these dangers to locate the source of SARS. The project was part of a global viral surveillance effort led by the U.S. Nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. The nonprofit, which has annual revenues of more than $ 16 million, more than 90 percent of government grants, has its office in New York, but partners with local research groups of others. countries for field and laboratory work. The WIV was his crown jewel and Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, has co-authored with Shi on most of his key papers.

Taking thousands of samples of guano, fecal swabs and bat tissue and looking in those samples for genetic sequences similar to SARS, Shi’s team began to discover many closely related viruses. In a cave in Yunnan Province in 2011 or 2012, they discovered the two closest ones, which they named WIV1 and SHC014.

Shi was able to grow WIV1 in his lab from a fecal sample and showed that it could directly infect human cells, proving that SARS-like viruses willing to jump directly from bats to humans were already hiding in the natural world. This showed, according to Daszak and Shi, that bat coronaviruses were a “substantial global threat.” They said scientists had to find them and study them before they could find us.

Many of the other viruses could not be cultured, but the Baric system provided a way to quickly test their peaks by transforming them into similar viruses. When the chimera he made with SHC014 proved to be capable of infecting human cells in a dish, Daszak told the press that these revelations should “move this virus from an emerging candidate to a present and clear danger.” .

For others, it was the perfect example of the unnecessary dangers of the science of function gain. “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a laboratory, of a new unnatural risk,” Rutgers microbiologist Richard Ebright, a longtime critic of this research, told Nature.

For Baric, the situation was more nuanced. While its creation may be more dangerous than the original mouse-adapted virus it had used as a backbone, it was still far-fetched compared to SARS, it will certainly not be suggested later by Senator Paul.

In the end, the NIH clamp never had teeth. It included a clause granting exceptions “if the head of the funding agency determines that the investigation is urgent to protect public health or national security.” Not only were Baric’s studies allowed to advance, but so were all those requesting exemptions. Funding restrictions were lifted in 2017 and replaced by a more lenient system.

Tyvek suits and respirators

If the NIH was looking for a scientist to make regulators comfortable with the investigation of function gain, Baric was the obvious choice. For years, he had insisted on additional security measures and struggled to point them out in his 2015 paper, as if it were a model to follow.

He CDC recognizes four levels of biosafety and recommends which pathogens should be studied at which level. Biosafety level 1 is for non-hazardous organisms and requires virtually no precautions: wear a lab coat and gloves as needed. BSL-2 is for moderately dangerous pathogens that are already endemic to the area, and relatively gentle interventions are indicated: closing the door, wearing eye protection, throwing waste in an autoclave. BSL-3 is where things get serious. These are pathogens that can cause serious respiratory transmission diseases, such as influenza and SARS, and associated protocols include multiple barriers to escape. The labs are lined by two sets of doors that close and close; the air is filtered; the staff wears full PPE and N95 masks and is under medical supervision. BSL-4 is for the worst of the bad guys, like Ebola and Marburg: full moon suits and dedicated air systems are added to the arsenal.

“There are no applicable rules of what you should and should not do. It depends on individual countries, institutions and scientists. “

Filippa Lentzos, King’s College London

In Baric’s lab, chimeras were studied in BSL-3, enhanced with additional steps such as Tyvek suits, double gloves, and powered air respirators for all workers. Local first aid teams participated in regular exercises to increase their familiarity with the lab. All workers were monitored for infections and local hospitals had procedures in place to handle incoming scientists. It was probably one of the safest BSL-3 facilities in the world. That still wasn’t enough to prevent it a handful of mistakes over the years: even some scientists were bitten by virus-carrying mice. But no infections occurred.

New pathogens

In 2014, the NIH awarded a five-year, $ 3.75 million grant to the EcoHealth Alliance to study the risk of more bat-transmitted coronaviruses arising in China, using the same type of techniques that Baric had pioneered. Part of this work was to be outsourced to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Source link

0 notes

yulnabi · 6 years ago

Text

Day 55 pt 2 [IC-Chuvash Saga]

Monday: The Third 5-Year Plan

01.02.2211

This day saw the birth of the Council of Metaphysical Cleansing. It is leaded by Governess Aleksandra Popova. They seek for our government to maintain the status quo and continue to push spiritualist values. They want the government to push for the tenets of your faith, oh wise and beautiful Lady Inanna.

02.03.2211

The Alpine world Alexander Pushkin just became our first colony outside our home system. It is a mineral rich planet capable of sustaining up to 17 billion inhabitants. I congratulated the millions of workers who worked tirelessly to make it possible, and promised that those who choose to immigrate to our colonies will enjoy the same rights as those who live in our home system.

03.03.2211

Just a month after the establishment of our first colony, today marked the official opening of our second and third colonies.

The Stroeva colony is an alpine world capable of sustaining up to 25 billion inhabitants. It enjoys impressive natural beauty, and resources beyond our wildest of expectations. It’s only been hours since it was established, and already, billions of Chuvash are planning to move there from our now crowded ringworld.

The Natalya Stroeva colony is located on a planet with ideal conditions for most sentient life. Something our scientists named a “Gaia” world. It is rich in food, minerals, and energy capacity. The planet can hold up to 25 billion inhabitants.

04.25.2211

Our scientist today discovered an ancient Cybrex research station while in orbit around the planet Tau Cigny VII. The remains are around 600,000 years old, and the creatures who manned that station are part organic, part mechanical. In a sense, they appear to have been at a crossroads, similar to my mother’s species, the Kanesh. Whereas the Kanesh maintained a combination of artificial and organic, the Cybrex seem to have moved towards becoming entirely artificial.

07.01.2211

The growing emphasis by the Council of Metaphysical Cleansing on the sexual tenets of our faith has moved us away from our commitment to peace. I feel we have lost focus everything our faith encompasses, and have selectively chosen those that give us personal pleasure. As such, I have decided to establish the Peaceful Advancement Council. Our goal is to preserve peace within and outside our borders.

07.22.2211

A group calling themselves the Cursed Ones came into contact with one of our science ships. Disregarding diplomatic protocol, it fired upon our ship. These uncivilized brutes do not have a formal government, and have been classified as space pirates, as it seems they move around the galaxy, attacking civilian ships for salvage.

07.23.2211

Today our ships came in contact with a highly advanced civilization. The Sarand Protectors, as they call themselves, have a level of technology that far exceeds any of the other civilizations in this galaxy. According to the archives we stumbled upon, they are one of the first civilizations to achieve ftl. They have been around since the time of the Cybrex, and once controlled a very large portion of the galaxy, though nowadays they are mostly isolationists and would rather worship their god within their borders.

10.07.2211

Lady Inanna, our commitment to peace remains strong. Today, though, our hands were forced. The 1st Kardasheva Kosmoflota came in contact with the pirate base in the Colthium system. They fired at our ships, and we had no option but to retaliate. In the ensuing battle, our fleet destroyed 1000 of their ships and their base. We suffered no casualties in the battle.

01.02.2212

Lady Inanna, I have been so focused in maintaining your holy nation together, that I may have failed as a parent. Today, my daughter, Princess Elmira, established the Citizen Obedience Party. They are seeking for us to become much more centralized and to spread your faith through military conquests. I tried to reason with her that such is not the way, and that it offends your tenets, but she insists that if we truly love all life in the galaxy, we have an obligation to bring your faith to them even if they refuse. I pray that our population resists the urge to use force to spread your word.

06.14.2212

Mayor Ignatsievich of the Stroeva colony informed me that they have encountered titanic life on the planet. I ordered us to keep our distance from their habitat, and ordered our scientist to establish contact with the creatures.

07.01.2212

Scientist Tatiana Kotova informed me today that she had just established the Xeno Aid Alliance. They want us to adopt an open immigration policy, to push for friendly relations with the other civilizations in the galaxy, and to grant citizenship status to all xenos living within our borders.

I sympathize with their ideals, and plan to put each of their proposals into effect, though the changes will be gradual.

01.05.2213

Admiral Dima Bilan has founded the No Entanglements Alliance. They are advocating for closed borders and the annihilation or expulsion of all non-Chuvash from our nation.

These ideals are an affront to Lady Inanna, and though I cannot stand such an attitude, we cannot let ourselves act the way they would like us to act against the xenos.

02.23.2213

Today our scientists found thousands of remains, from over a dozen species, on the planet Regor I. The remains are approximately 600,000 years old, which dates them close to the time when the Cybrex were ravaging this part of the galaxy.

01.21.2214

We received a message from the Kroll Citizen League informing us that they were now opening their borders to our civilian ships. They see no reason to keep our researchers away and appear to be seeking closer relations with us.

02.24.2214

Khan Albina Akhtyamova contacted me personally to inform me that their neighbors, the Jas’Gavez Galactic State had declared them, the Bashkirs, their rival. Tensions seem to be rising in that part of the galaxy, as several Jas’Gavez fleets have been spotted by our sentry array near the Bashkiria border.

03.01.2214

Tragedy has struck the Stroeva colony. After hundreds of thousands of years of immunity to disease, a deadly virus has struck one of our population centers. As soon as I received the report, I ordered the construction of a special hospital in the planet, where our sick colonists are to be treated and studied, as we scramble to find a cure.

03.05.2214

Our scientist inform me that they have found the remains of two Cybrex ships. Unlike similar findings, it appears this time the Cybrex were on the losing end, as we found no sign they managed to destroy any of their enemies in this battle. We can only speculate that they were either badly outnumbered, or there is more to the story. I have ordered a special project in Regor IIa to study this even deeper.

04.06.2214

Khan Albina Akhtyamova informs me that though it pains her, they have decided to declare the Jas-Gavaz their rival. I told her that Lady Inanna would understand that they were given no choice, given the aggressive stance of their enemy. I also reassured her that if the tensions boiled into outright war, we would respect our deal with them and come to their aid.

07.02.2214

A bit of good news. Today we established contact with the titanic lifeforms that inhabit the Stroeva colony. They are simple-minded creatures, but capable of basic communication. They agreed to join our defense forces if we are to ever call upon them. In exchange, we have agreed to build massive reservoirs on Stroeva, where they may roam freely and in peace.

08.13.2214

Blessed be your name, Lady Inanna. The horrible plague that was ravaging Stroeva has finally come to an end. We mourn the loss of more than 4 billion lives. It is an episode that will not be forgotten. I have ordered the construction of a memorial to the victims, as well as continued study of the virus, so that we may have a cure readily available if it ever springs up again.

11.03.2214

Today we received an unexpected message from the leader of the Qvefoz Horde. The message read: “Our mental network is vast, giving us access to thoughts and ideas from every corner of our empire, but not a single entity has ever seen anything that would lend merit to your tragic existence.”

It appears they are trying to provoke and aggressive reaction from our part.

Though we did not respond aggressively, I have nonetheless ordered the construction of 10000 Antonenko class destroyers.

05.22.2215

Today I ordered the construction of a ringworld around the Vladislava Evtushenko star. This is a massive project that when fully completed, will be able to house 100 billion inhabitants. It is the single most massive project we’ve ever decided to undertake.

07.09.2215

Our borders continue to expand. As our population continues to grow, we have found ourselves with a need for more living room. Today, we established the Andrey Tarkovsky colony in the system by the same name. It has very cold climate, most of the planet under arctic conditions. Still, we estimate that it can sustain up to 14 billion inhabitants.

08.03.2215

The Ksenia Aleksandrova colony, in the Ksenia Aleksandrova system, has become our newest colony. It is an alpine planet that can hold up to 19 billion inhabitants.

Today also marked the signing of a migration treaty with the Khanate of Bashkortostan. With this, our citizens and residents can immigrate to any colony owned by the Khanate of Bashkortostan. Citizens and residents of Bashkiria may also move freely into our colonies. It is but another step to cement the relationship between our two nations.

09.24.2215

Lady Inanna, today was a testament of your glory. The Khanate of Bashkortostan and your loyal servants have formed an economic, and military alliance. This brings the two states devoted to worshipping you together.

It comes as no surprise that as soon as the Novi Ufa Pact was finalized, the Jas’Gavaz informed us that they were closing their borders to all our ships.

12.25.2215

Today we finished a massive project in the Timati system. After years of work, we have built a Gavity Modulator. These massive devices are able to generate an artificial gravitational field that can compress and entire star, altering its internal fusion process.

12.31.2215

As we end our third 5-Year Plan, I can say with pride that it has been a success. During this period, a majority of our population began exhibiting psionic abilities, bringing them closer to your light.

Our nation currently has a population of 387 billion, including 359 billion psionic Chuvash, 2 billion Chuvash, and 13 billion xenos from across 12 species. We currently inhabit six planets, 12 ringworld segments, and 1 habitat. Chuvashia can boast of 1 Solar Stronghold, 3 Citadels, 1 Star Fortress, and 3 Starholds. Our Kosmoflota consists of 20,000 Golovanova-class corvettes and 10,000 Antonenko-class destroyers.

#champions online rp #Stellaris #Yuliya Kardasheva

1 note · View note

stephenmccull · 4 years ago

Text

Mysterious Ailment, Mysterious Relief: Vaccines Help Some Covid Long Haulers

An estimated 10% to 30% of people who get covid-19 suffer from lingering symptoms of the disease, or what’s known as “long covid.”

This story is part of a partnership that includes NPR and KHN. It can be republished for free.

Judy Dodd, who lives in New York City, is one of them. She spent nearly a year plagued by headaches, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and problems with her sense of smell, among other symptoms.

She said she worried that this “slog through life” was going to be her new normal.

Everything changed after she got her covid vaccine.

“I was like a new person. It was the craziest thing ever,” said Dodd, referring to how many of her health problems subsided significantly after her second shot.

As the U.S. pushes to get people vaccinated, a curious benefit is emerging for those with this post-illness syndrome: Their symptoms are easing and, in some cases, fully resolving after vaccination.

It’s the latest clue in the immunological puzzle of long covid, a still poorly understood condition that leaves some who get infected with wide-ranging symptoms months after the initial illness.

The notion that a vaccine aimed at preventing the disease may also treat it has sparked optimism among patients, and scientists who study the post-illness syndrome are taking a close look at these stories.

“I didn’t expect the vaccine to make people feel better,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine who’s researching long covid.

“More and more, I started hearing from people with long covid having their symptoms reduced or completely recovering, and that’s when I started to get excited because this might be a potential cure for some people.”

While promising, it’s still too early to know just how many people with long covid feel better as a result of being vaccinated and whether that amounts to a statistically meaningful difference.

In the meantime, Iwasaki and other researchers are beginning to incorporate this question into ongoing studies of long haulers by monitoring their symptoms pre- and post-vaccination and collecting blood samples to study their immune response.

There are several leading theories for why vaccines could alleviate the symptoms of long covid: It’s possible the vaccines clear up leftover virus or fragments, interrupt a damaging autoimmune response or in some other way “reset” the immune system.

“It’s all biologically plausible and, importantly, should be easy to test,” said Dr. Steven Deeks of the University of California-San Francisco, who is also studying the long-term impacts of the coronavirus on patients.

Patient Stories Offer Hope

Before getting the vaccine, Dodd, who’s in her early 50s, said she felt as if she had aged 20 years.

She had trouble returning to work, and even simple tasks left her with a crushing headache and exhaustion.

“I’d climb the subway stairs and I’d have to stop at the top, take my mask off just to get air,” Dodd said.

After she got her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in January, many of Dodd’s symptoms flared up, so much so that she almost didn’t get her second dose.

But she did — and a few days later, she noticed her energy was back, breathing was easier and soon even her problems with smell were resolving.

“It was like the sky had opened up. The sun was out,” she said. “It’s the closest I’ve felt to pre-covid.”

In the absence of large studies, researchers are culling what information they can from patient stories, informal surveys and clinicians’ experiences. For instance, about 40% of the 577 long-covid patients contacted by the group Survivor Corps said they felt better after getting vaccinated.

Among the patients of Dr. Daniel Griffin at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, “brain fog” and gastrointestinal problems are two of the most common symptoms that seem to resolve post-vaccination.

Griffin, who is running a long-term study of post-covid illness, initially estimated that about 30% to 40% of his patients felt better. Now, he believes the number may be higher, as more patients receive their second dose and see further improvements.

“We’ve been sort of chipping away at this [long covid] by treating each symptom,” he said. “If it’s really true that at least 40% of people have significant recovery with a therapeutic vaccination, then, to date, this is the most effective intervention we have for long covid.”

A small U.K. study, not yet peer-reviewed, found about 23% of long-covid patients had an “increase in symptom resolution” post-vaccination, compared with about 15% of those who were unvaccinated.

But not all clinicians are seeing the same level of improvement.

Clinicians at post-covid clinics at the University of Washington in Seattle, Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, National Jewish Health in Denver and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center told NPR and KHN that, so far, a small number of patients — or none at all — have reported feeling better after vaccination, but it wasn’t a widespread phenomenon.

“I’ve heard anecdotes of people feeling worse, and you can scientifically come up with an explanation for it going in either direction,” said UCSF’s Deeks.

Why Are Patients Feeling Better?

There are several theories for why vaccines could help some patients — each relying on different physiological understandings of long covid, which manifests in a variety of ways.

“The clear story is that long covid isn’t just one issue,” said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, which is also studying long covid and the possible therapeutic effects of vaccination.

Some people have fast resting heart rates and can’t tolerate exercise. Others suffer primarily from cognitive problems, or some combination of symptoms like exhaustion, trouble sleeping and issues with smell and taste, he said.

As a result, it’s likely that different therapies will work better for some versions of long covid than others, said Deeks.

One theory is that people who are infected never fully clear the coronavirus, and a viral “reservoir,” or fragments of the virus, persist in parts of the body and cause inflammation and long-term symptoms, said Iwasaki, the Yale immunologist.

According to that explanation, the vaccine might induce an immune response that gives the body extra firepower to beat back the residual infection.

“That would actually be the most straightforward way of getting rid of the disease, because you’re getting rid of the source of inflammation,” Iwasaki said.

Griffin at Columbia Medical Center said this “viral persistence” idea is supported by what he’s seeing in his patients and hearing from other researchers and clinicians. He said patients seem to be improving after receiving any of the covid vaccines, generally about “two weeks later, when it looks like they’re having what would be an effective, protective response.”

Another possible reason that some patients improve comes from the understanding of long covid as an autoimmune condition, in which the body’s immune cells end up damaging its own tissues.

A vaccine could hypothetically kick into gear the “innate immune system” and “dampen the symptoms,” but only temporarily, said Iwasaki, who has studied the role of harmful proteins, called autoantibodies, in covid.

This self-destructive immune response happens in a subset of covid patients while they are ill, and the autoantibodies produced can circulate for months later. But it’s not yet clear how that may contribute to long covid, said John Wherry, director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Another theory is that the infection has “miswired” the immune system in some other way and caused chronic inflammation, perhaps like chronic fatigue syndrome, Wherry said. In that scenario, the vaccination might somehow “reset” the immune system.

With more than 77 million people fully vaccinated in the U.S., teasing apart how many of those with long covid would have improved even without any intervention is difficult.

“Right now, we have anecdotes; we’d love it to be true. Let’s wait for some real data,” said Wherry.

This story is part of a partnership that includes NPR and KHN.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Mysterious Ailment, Mysterious Relief: Vaccines Help Some Covid Long Haulers published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

0 notes