November 23, 2020

In today's episode we discuss: —Understanding the Pathology: Truncation of orf3b in the circulating SARS-CoV-2 strains has been shown in one study. Microbiologists and Infectious Disease researchers from the University of Hong Kong analyze the genome of SAR-CoV-2 with a particular focus on the orf3b gene, which was found to antagonize type-I interferon activation. Using the sequence data from the GISAID depository, they report a steady increase and persistence of the truncated form of the orf3b gene in SARS-CoV-2 strains worldwide, particularly in countries with the highest confirmed number of COVID-19 cases. The authors note that further research on orf3b's truncation in context with COVID-19's transmissibility and infectivity could be beneficial for guiding future therapeutic and diagnostic developments. —R&D: Diagnosis & Treatments: Convalescent plasma anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike protein ectodomain and receptor-binding domain IgG correlate with virus neutralization. Researchers primarily at Houston Methodist Hospital analyzed samples of plasma from 68 recovered COVID-19 patients, 2,814 asymptomatic patients, and 10 naive human plasma specimens to investigate the relationship between different neutralizing antibodies and possible ways to screen plasma samples for a virus neutralization (VN) titer ≥ 160. · There is lack of efficacy of standard doses of ivermectin in severe COVID-19 patients according to a retrospective controlled cohort study. Specialists in global health and infectious disease from Hospital Clinic-Universitat de Barcelona, Spain evaluated efficacy of standard doses of ivermectin in 13 patients with severe COVID-19 against 13 controls without ivermectin. They found no significant differences in clinical or microbiological outcomes between the two groups after 8-11 days of treatment (p >0.999). Authors acknowledge the small sample size in this study, but suggest their results warrant further research involving high-dose ivermectin to better evaluate its efficacy in patients with severe COVID-19.