Category: How do we treat infectious diseases?

An estimated 17% of COVID-19 cases show no symptoms A new meta-analysis (a study of studies) suggests that roughly 1-in-6 cases of COVID-19 present without symptoms

Posted on March 11, 2021April 2, 2021 by Nathan Gock 558 views

Questions surrounding the nature of asymptomatic cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been present since near the beginning of the pandemic. A recent meta-analysis explored what has been published on this question.

Hand Sanitizer squirting into hand, by Kelly Sikkema

Do hand sanitizers work on the coronavirus? Two companies got together to test Purell hand sanitizers in gel and foam format using a suspension experiment and found both sanitizers to be effective in reducing viable virus by 1000 times.

Posted on March 4, 2021April 1, 2021 by Gina Misra 366 views

Do commercial hand sanitizers work on coronavirus? In the lab, yes. Studies are needed using real human hands, which come with ethical challenges.

Small animals that carry disease adapt well to our activities A study suggests that small mammals like rodents and birds have adapted to thrive after urban development of wild land. These animals are also more likely to carry human pathogens.

Posted on February 11, 2021April 2, 2021 by Sriram Devata 148 views

A study suggests that small mammals like rodents have adapted to thrive on human-influenced land. They also happen to carry a lot of human pathogens. This increases the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, such as pandemics.

Deliberately infecting volunteers with COVID-19 to speed up vaccine development? Human challenge trials, a process whereby healthy volunteers are given potential vaccines and then infected with COVID-19, could be a way to speed up vaccine development and reduce the global burden of coronavirus.

Posted on November 24, 2020April 1, 2021 by CarolineVranaDiaz 87 views

A potential way to speed up vaccine development: human challenge trials. #covid19 #research

Laboratory methods behind the polio vaccine discovery In 1949, Harvard scientists established a few tissue culture tricks that not only allowed Jonas Salk to develop the polio vaccine, but also became standard practice when growing polio in the lab. His team was awarded a Nobel Prize.

Posted on September 24, 2020January 15, 2021 by Gina Misra 337 views

Poliomyelitis is the name of the disease caused by the poliovirus, and it mostly affects children under the age of 5, causing paralysis in a small percent of cases. The disease had been around since the 1800s at low levels, but became an epidemic in multiple countries between the 1910s-1960s. Because polio was killing…

What beached whales can teach us about antibiotic resistance Researchers found that more than half of the bacteria collected from stranded cetaceans in the Philippines showed antimicrobial resistance to commonly used drugs.

Posted on September 17, 2020January 15, 2021 by Ma. Francesca Santiago 233 views

Researchers found that more than half of the bacteria collected from stranded cetaceans in the Philippines showed antimicrobial resistance to commonly used drugs.