Pfizer and BioNTech’s updated COMIRNATY vaccine, targeting the LP.8.1 COVID-19 sublineage, gained FDA approval for use in seniors and high-risk individuals aged 5 to 64. The vaccine promises enhanced immune defense against current variants and is set for immediate distribution across the U.S.
This new research, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, suggested that the cognitive impairments of COVID-19 presented similar fundamental changes within the brain to those showing evidence of dementia.
Here the investigators infected mice with SARS-CoV-2 and sequenced the genomes of viruses replicating in the brain versus the lung. In the lung, spike protein had a very close structure to the infecting virus.
The results underline the necessity for widespread surveillance as well as the discovery of new SARS-CoV-2 mutations in animals.
Despite being influenced by prior vaccinations, the new vaccine produces widely neutralizing antibodies in response.
This was a critical question and finding the answer opens up a whole new understanding of the link between this serious lung injury and the kind of inflammation that can lead to cardiovascular complications.
CDC says that there is no current risk to the health from the spreading variants
The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to Hungarian and U.S. scientists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The new variant of COVID-19 was initially found in Denmark on July 24 in a patient with severe symptoms and gradually found in other symptomatic patients during sample testing and screening.
