Singapore SARS survivors yield hope for Covid super vaccine

‘Survivors who lived through the SARS crisis in Singapore nearly two decades ago may yield hope for the development of a super vaccine to combat potent Covid-19 variants and even other coronaviruses, new research shows.

‘Scientists from the city-state’s Duke-NUS Medical School and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) have found “highly potent functional antibodies” in people who had severe acute respiratory syndrome and were vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech’s shots for Covid-19.’

Read here (Free Malaysia Today, August 21, 2021)

Case for wearing face masks (3): WHO considering changing guidelines

‘Speaking at a Chatham House briefing on Wednesday, Prof David Heymann, an infectious disease expert who led the global response to the SARS outbreak, said that new evidence from Hong Kong had prompted a reconsideration of the role of face masks. “The WHO is debating that tomorrow to understand if there is evidence that would call for a change in what WHO is recommending,” he said.

‘The data from Hong Kong was shared confidentially with the WHO, but is likely to be published soon, Heymann said. He added that, in reassessing its policy, the WHO would take into account health workers’ need for masks in all countries.’

Read here (The Guardian, April 1, 2020)

Face masks: Asia may have been right about coronavirus and face masks, and the rest of the world is coming around

‘Writing last month, Adrien Burch, an expert in microbiology at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that “despite hearing that face masks ‘don't work,’ you probably haven't seen any strong evidence to support that claim. That's because it doesn't exist…

‘In fact, there is evidence of the exact opposite: that masks help prevent viral infections like the current pandemic.

‘Burch pointed to a Cochrane Review -- a systemic analysis of published studies on a given topic -- which found strong evidence during the 2003 SARS epidemic in support of wearing masks. One study of community transmission in Beijing found that "consistently wearing a mask in public was associated with a 70% reduction in the risk of catching SARS.”’

Read here (CNN, April 1, 2020)

Case for wearing face masks (1): People who wore masks during the SARS outbreak had a 70% lower risk of being diagnosed compared with those who never wore masks

‘We also used this investigation to quantify the impact of behaviours (i.e. mask wearing, handwashing) that were promoted to reduce the risk for SARS. Wearing masks outside the home in a reference period corresponding to the 2 weeks before symptom onset for cases was significantly protective against clinical SARS.

‘Supporting the validity of this finding, there was a dose-response effect: by multivariable analysis, persons who always wore masks had a 70% lower risk of being diagnosed with clinical SARS compared with those who never wore masks, and persons with intermittent mask use had a 60% lower risk.’

Read here (NIH, 2004)