Mutation in new coronavirus increases chance of infection: study

(Reuters) – A specific mutation in the new coronavirus can significantly increase its ability to infect cells, according to a study by U.S. researchers.

The research may explain why early outbreaks in some parts of the world did not end up overwhelming health systems as much as other outbreaks in New York and Italy, according to experts at Scripps Research.

The mutation, named D614G, increased the number of “spikes” on the coronavirus – which is the part that gives it its distinctive shape. Those spikes are what allow the virus to bind to and infect cells.

“The number—or density—of functional spikes on the virus is 4 or 5 times greater due to this mutation,” said Hyeryun Choe, one of the senior authors of the study.

The researchers say that it is still unknown whether this small mutation affects the severity of symptoms of infected people, or increases mortality.

The researchers conducting lab experiments say that more research, including controlled studies – widely considered a gold standard for clinical trials, needs to be done to confirm their findings from test tube experiments.

Older research has showed that the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is mutating and evolving as it adapts to its human hosts. The D614G mutation in particular has been flagged as an urgent concern because it appeared to be emerging as a dominant mutation.

The Scripps Research study is currently undergoing peer review and was released on Friday amid reports of its findings.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru: Editing by Bernard Orr)

Study suggests coronavirus spread swiftly around world in late 2019

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – A genetic analysis of samples from more than 7,500 people infected with COVID-19 suggests the new coronavirus spread quickly around the world late last year and is adapting to its human hosts, scientists said on Wednesday.

A study by scientists at University College London’s (UCL) Genetics Institute found almost 200 recurrent genetic mutations of the new coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2 – which the researchers said showed how it may be evolving as it spreads in people.

Francois Balloux, a UCL professor who co-led the research, said results showed that a large proportion of the global genetic diversity of the virus causing COVID-19 was found in all of the hardest-hit countries.

That suggests that the virus was already being transmitted extensively around the globe from early on in the epidemic.

“All viruses naturally mutate. Mutations in themselves are not a bad thing and there is nothing to suggest SARS-CoV-2 is mutating faster or slower than expected,” said Balloux. “So far, we cannot say whether SARS-CoV-2 is becoming more or less lethal and contagious.”

In a second study also published on Wednesday, scientists at Britain’s University of Glasgow who also analyzed SARS-CoV-2 virus samples said their findings showed that previous work suggesting there were two different strains was inaccurate.

A preliminary study by Chinese scientists in March had suggested there may have been two strains of the new coronavirus causing infections there, with more of them more “aggressive” than the other.

But publishing their analysis in the journal Virus Evolution, the Glasgow team said only one type of the virus was circulating.

More than 3.68 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 256,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since cases were first identified in China in December 2019.

The UCL team’s findings, published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, confirm that the virus emerged in late 2019, Balloux said, before quickly spreading across the globe.

His team screened the genomes of more than 7,500 viruses from infected patients around the world. Their results add to a growing body of evidence that SARS-CoV-2 viruses share a common ancestor from late 2019, suggesting this was when the virus jumped from a previous animal host into people.

This means it is unlikely the new virus was circulating in people for long before it was first detected, Balloux said.

A study by French scientists published earlier this week found a man there was infected with COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before France confirmed its first cases.

The World Health Organization said the French case was “not surprising” and urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases.

Balloux said the 198 small genetic changes, or mutations, that his and other studies have identified held helpful clues for researchers seeking to develop drugs and vaccines.

“If we focus our efforts on parts of the virus that are less likely to mutate, we have a better chance of developing drugs that will be effective in the long run,” Balloux said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland,; Editing by Peter Graff)

NIH begins trial to test hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19

(Reuters) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Thursday it was testing anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19, days after several U.S. doctors said they were using the drug on infected patients without evidence that it worked.

The use of the decades-old drug, which has been touted by President Donald Trump as a potential weapon against COVID-19, has soared as the United States has quickly become the epicenter of the pandemic.

The study will evaluate the safety and the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and be conducted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH.

“Hydroxychloroquine has showed promise in a lab setting against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and preliminary reports suggest potential efficacy in small studies with patients,” said James P Kiley, director, Division of Lung Diseases, NHLBI.

The drug is used to treat malaria and rheumatoid conditions such as arthritis. Potential side effects of the drug include vision loss and heart problems.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, but it has provided an emergency use authorization for the anti-malaria drug.

Drugmakers across the world are racing to develop a treatment or a vaccine for the disease that has killed over 87,000 people.

(Reporting By Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Cancer overtakes heart disease as biggest rich-world killer

FILE PHOTO: Cancer cells are seen on a large screen connected to a microscope at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover, Germany, March, 6, 2012. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) – Cancer has overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of death in wealthy countries and could become the world’s biggest killer within just a few decades if current trends persist, researchers said on Tuesday.

Publishing the findings of two large studies in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists said they showed evidence of a new global “epidemiologic transition” between different types of chronic disease.

While cardiovascular disease remains, for now, the leading cause of mortality worldwide among middle-aged adults – accounting for 40% of all deaths – that is no longer the case in high-income countries, where cancer now kills twice as many people as heart disease, the findings showed.

“Our report found cancer to be the second most common cause of death globally in 2017, accounting for 26% of all deaths. But as (heart disease) rates continue to fall, cancer could likely become the leading cause of death worldwide, within just a few decades,” said Gilles Dagenais, a professor at Quebec’s Laval University in Canada who co-led the work.

Of an estimated 55 million deaths in the world in 2017, the researchers said, around 17·7 million were due to cardiovascular disease – a group of conditions that includes heart failure, angina, heart attack and stroke.

Around 70% of all cardiovascular cases and deaths are due to modifiable risks such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diet, smoking and other lifestyle factors.

In high-income countries, common treatment with cholesterol-lowering statins and blood-pressure medicines have helped bring rates of heart disease down dramatically in the past few decades.

Dagenais’ team said their findings suggest that the higher rates of heart-disease deaths in low-income countries may be mainly due to a lower quality of healthcare.

The research found first hospitalization rates and heart disease medication use were both substantially lower in poorer and middle-income countries than in wealthy ones.

The research was part of the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiologic (PURE) study, published in The Lancet and presented at the ESC Congress in Paris.

Countries analyzed included Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones)

Study hikes Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria death toll to 4,645

Graves destroyed during Hurricane Maria in September 2017, are seen at a cemetery, in Lares, Puerto Rico February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

By Gene Emery

(Reuters Health) – Hurricane Maria claimed the lives of 4,645 people in Puerto Rico last year and not the 64 long pegged by the island’s government as the official death toll, according to a survey of thousands of residents by a research team led by Harvard University.

The researchers estimated that most victims of the storm died between Sept. 20 and Dec. 31, 2017, as a direct or indirect result of Puerto Rico’s worst natural disaster in 90 years. One-third perished because of delayed or interrupted medical care.

While cautioning that the estimate of 4,645 victims may be too low, the researchers said the numbers “underscore the inattention of the U.S. government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico.”

The tally, reported online on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, is likely to be controversial because it is far higher than previous independent estimates.

The emergency response to the disaster became highly politicized and provoked criticism of President Donald Trump, who was faulted when much of the U.S. territory remained without power for months.

Puerto Rico’s government released a statement on Tuesday welcoming the study and saying it would analyze it further.

In the aftermath of the storm, Puerto Rico commissioned George Washington University to conduct an independent study into the death toll, the results of which are due soon.

“As the world knows, the magnitude of this tragic disaster caused by Hurricane Maria resulted in many fatalities. We have always expected the number to be higher than what was previously reported,” Carlos Mercader, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration said in the government statement.

The chief author of the new study, Caroline Buckee of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Maria, a major hurricane with winds close to 150 miles (241 km) per hour, caused an estimated $90 billion in damage to an island already struggling economically and many residents have subsequently left.

There is a wide margin for error in the study authored by Buckee. While the researchers estimated 4,645 deaths, the actual number could be as low as 793 and as high as 8,498, the study showed.

The tally of 4,645 dead is more than four times higher than a December estimate by the New York Times, which said the actual death toll was probably about 1,052.

A Pennsylvania State University study put the number at 1,085.

The Buckee team randomly conducted in-person surveys of 3,299 of the estimated 1.1 million Puerto Rican households earlier this year, making sure to include remote areas.

Respondents were not paid and were asked if a household member had died directly or indirectly as a result of the storm. Missing people were not counted as deaths. Respondents were also asked about deaths within a five-minute walking distance of their homes.

The Buckee team also said that in the aftermath of the storm households went, on average, 68 days without water, 84 days without electricity and 41 days without cell phone coverage. In the most remote areas, 83 percent of the households were still without power by Dec. 31.

(Reporting by Gene Emery; Additional reporting by Daniel Bases in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

Miami among cities at risk from yellow fever spread : study

FILE PHOTO: The downtown skyline of Miami, Florida is seen on Nov 5, 2015. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) – Miami is at risk of a deadly yellow fever outbreak because the disease could thrive there but the city has no checks on travelers arriving from endemic zones, a study to be published by the World Health Organization showed.

Yellow fever is spread by the same mosquito that causes Zika virus, which spread through the Americas after being detected in Brazil in 2015 and has been reported in southern Florida and southern Texas.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control advises that yellow fever is found in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and South America, and is a very rare cause of illness in U.S. travelers.

But the study, “International travel and the urban spread of yellow fever”, showed that almost 2.8 million people flew to the United States from endemic yellow fever areas in 2016.

Unlike some countries, the United States does not require travelers from such places to show proof of yellow fever vaccination.

“At a time when global yellow fever vaccine supplies are diminished, an epidemic in a densely populated city could have substantial health and economic consequences,” the researchers based in Canada, the United States and Britain wrote in the study.

Around 9.5 million people live in U.S. urban areas such as Miami that are ecologically suitable for an outbreak, they wrote in the study, issued online ahead of its publication in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

They said climate change, mobility, urbanization and a vaccine shortage had increased the risk of yellow fever globally and they called for a review of vaccination policies.

The study found 472 cities suitable for an outbreak in 54 countries, but many, such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi, Manila and Guangzhou, required vaccination certificates on arrival from endemic countries.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the need for vaccination certificates was at each country’s discretion.

The researchers said a substantial proportion of the world’s yellow fever vaccine stocks had been used up by recent epidemics in Africa and Brazil, and further depleted by manufacturing difficulties. Preventive campaigns could cause shortages.

“Should another urban epidemic occur in the near future, vaccine demand could easily exceed the available supply,” they said.

Yellow fever, which can be hard to diagnose, causes symptoms including muscle pain, nausea and vomiting, and about 15 percent of cases lead to a more toxic phase within 24 hours, potentially experiencing jaundice, abdominal pain, deteriorating kidney function and bleeding from the mouth, nose, eyes or stomach.

Half of severe sufferers die within a week or two, but the rest recover without significant organ damage, according to WHO.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Hugh Lawson)