Category Archives: Medical research

UK’s progress on Covid now squandered, warns top scientist

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Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust, suggests emergence of Omicron variant means pandemic is far from over

The emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.

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How probable is it Omicron Covid variant will take hold in UK?

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Analysis: UK’s early vaccine deployment and use of different vaccines from South Africa mean it’s too soon to say

Omicron is causing consternation around the world, with the variant found to be behind an exponential rise in Covid cases in South Africa. Yet with just 42 cases confirmed in the UK so far, and most European countries seeing numbers in the double rather than triple figures, could this be a tentative sign the variant may fail to take hold outside southern Africa? The bottom line is, it is too soon to say.

One issue is that there are important differences that make it difficult to compare the situations in South Africa and beyond.

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Covid: scientists find possible trigger for AstraZeneca jab blood clots

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Experts hope better understanding of rare side effect of vaccine could help ‘turn the tide’ on pandemic

Scientists believe they may have found the trigger behind the extremely rare blood clot complications stemming from the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine.

According to a team of researchers from Cardiff and the US, the reaction can be traced to the way the adenovirus used by the vaccine to shuttle the coronavirus’s genetic material into cells binds with a specific protein in the blood, known as platelet factor 4 (PF4).

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Omicron variant found around world as more nations tighten travel rules

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US among more than 50 nations bringing in stricter border controls as variant is identified in 24 countries

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been identified in new countries around the globe, including the US, west Africa, the Gulf and Asia, as American authorities indicated they would further tighten border controls over concerns that the new strain may be more transmissible.

Underscoring the fast spread of the variant, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa – where Omicron was first detected – said it had now been found in five out of nine provinces, and accounted for 74% of the virus genomes sequenced in November.

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Covid-19 variants may not evolve to be less dangerous, says Neil Ferguson

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Senior UK scientist says extent of threat posed by Omicron will not be clear until end of year

People should not assume that Covid will evolve to become a milder disease, a senior scientist has warned, adding that the threat posed by the Omicron coronavirus variant will not be clear until the end of December.

Prof Neil Ferguson, head of the disease outbreak analysis and modelling group at Imperial College London, told MPs on Wednesday that while evolution would drive Covid to spread more easily the virus might not become less dangerous.

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When did Omicron Covid variant arrive in UK and is it spreading?

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Analysis: scientists are working full tilt to answer these vital questions that may give clues as to what is to come

As new cases of Omicron continue to emerge in the UK, scientists are working full tilt to answer two vital questions: when did the variant arrive and is it spreading?

While at first glance those queries may seem less important than those around vaccine effectiveness or disease severity, the answers may give important clues as to what is to come.

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Omicron Covid variant ‘present in Europe at least 10 days ago’

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Two cases of new Covid variant found in Netherlands predate last week’s alert from South Africa

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was present in Europe at least 10 days ago and already appears to be spreading in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

“We have found the Omicron coronavirus variant in two test samples that were taken on November 19 and 23,” the Dutch health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is not yet clear whether these people had also visited southern Africa,” the ministry added.

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How dangerous is the Omicron variant?

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The Omicron variant of Covid has prompted governments around the world to reintroduce border restrictions, with Australia shutting the border to southern Africa and delaying the reopening date for international students and visa holders. The federal government has called for calm, describing the variant as ‘manageable’, but what do we actually know about it?


Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to medical editor Melissa Davey about what scientists have discovered so far about Omicron and our evolving approach to combating Covid variants

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Travel firms scramble to rearrange holidays amid new Covid measures

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Swiss skiing holidays in doubt as country joins Spain in tightening travel rules to contain Omicron variant

Tour operators are scrambling to rearrange Swiss skiing holidays after the country joined Spain in tightening travel restrictions amid rising concerns about the spread of the new Omicron Covid variant.

From Saturday night, Switzerland mandated 10 days of quarantine for all new arrivals, in effect wrecking skiing holidays in the Swiss Alps until further notice. Travel firms are also wrestling with Spain’s ban on non-vaccinated arrivals that will affect British holidaymakers from Wednesday 1 December.

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Early action against Omicron is imperative to avoid devastating consequences | Ewan Birney

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Scientists have sprung into action to identify the new Covid variant. We don’t yet know if it is a major threat - but we should not take any chances

It was only a matter of time before a new Sars-CoV-2 variant of concern emerged, requiring an urgent global response. It would seem that the Omicron variant, identified by scientists across Africa, including the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), poses the next major threat in the course of the pandemic. Early evidence from their genomic surveillance suggests that this new variant is a serious cause for concern and it is imperative that we act fast in response to this new information.

The variant has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong, and will undoubtedly continue to arise in other territories in the coming days; travel-related cases have appeared in Belgium and Israel. Two cases of the new variant have been detected in the UK at the time of writing.

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Omicron’s full impact will be felt in countries where fewer are vaccinated

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Analysis: the new coronavirus variant seems highly transmissible, but the big question is whether it causes severe disease. Either way, poorer nations will be hit hardest

In early August Gideon Schreiber and a team of virologists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel began playing around with the spike protein of the Sars-CoV-2 virus – the protein that allows the virus to enter our cells – to see if they could predict future mutations that could yield dangerous new variants of Covid-19.

At the time, Schreiber noted with concern that there were a variety of ways in which the spike protein could evolve. If all of these mutations occurred at once, it could yield a variant that was both extremely transmissible and potentially capable of evading some of the body’s immune defences, blunting the efficacy of the vaccines.

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Omicron: everything you need to know about new Covid variant

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Key questions answered about coronavirus variant first detected in southern Africa

The variant was initially referred to as B.1.1.529, but on Friday was designated as a variant of concern (VOC) by the World Health Organization because of its “concerning” mutations and because “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant”. The WHO system assigns such variants a Greek letter, to provide a non-stigmatising label that does not associate new variants with the location where they were first detected. The new variant has been called Omicron.

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BioNTech says it could tweak Covid vaccine in 100 days if needed

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Company says it will know in two weeks whether current Pfizer jab is effective against Omicron variant

BioNTech says it could produce and ship an updated version of its vaccine within 100 days if the new Covid variant detected in southern Africa is found to evade existing immunity.

The German biotechnology company is already investigating whether the vaccine it developed with US drugmaker Pfizer works well against the variant, named Omicron, which has caused concern due to its high number of mutations and initial suggestions that it could be transmitting more quickly.

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Novavax expected to be approved as fourth Covid vaccine in UK

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Trials show the protein-based jab causes fewer side-effects – and hundreds of British jobs depend on it

Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna. Britons have become so accustomed to the three Covid vaccines available in the UK that most have forgotten about another jab, Novavax – even though the government has ordered 60m doses and hundreds of British jobs depend on it.

Late last month the US company, with a factory on Teesside primed to manufacture doses, submitted final data to UK regulators and a positive decision is anticipated within days or weeks. It will bring to an end what feels like a long wait compared with the speedy development and approval of the other jabs, including for those who took part in trials.

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‘Follow the science’: AstraZeneca unveils £1bn R&D centre

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Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company has come a long way since it fought off a takeover bid in 2014

Little expense has been spared at the giant glass and steel structure that sprouts from a once-vacant plot of land on the outskirts of Cambridge.

AstraZeneca’s £1bn new research and development centre houses 16 labs and 2,200 scientists, making it the biggest science lab in Britain along with the Francis Crick Institute in London, and the pharmaceutical company’s biggest single site investment to date.

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New Zealand to reopen borders to vaccinated visitors from new year

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Border will first open to New Zealand citizens coming from Australia, then from the rest of the world, and finally to all other vaccinated visitors from April

New Zealand has announced it will reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors in the opening months of 2022, for the first time since prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced their snap closure in the first month of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s borders have been closed for more than a year and a half.

The border will initially open to New Zealand citizens and visa holders coming from Australia, then from the rest of the world, and finally to all other vaccinated visitors from the end of April. They will still have to self-isolate at home for a week, but will no longer have to pass through the country’s expensive and highly-space limited managed isolation facilities.

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UK employers step up demand for workers vaccinated against Covid

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Analysis shows job adverts requiring candidates to be jabbed rose by 189% between August and October

Employers in the UK are following the lead of their counterparts in the US by stepping up demands for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, analysis of recruitment adverts reveals.

According to figures from the jobs website Adzuna, the number of ads explicitly requiring candidates to be vaccinated rose by 189% between August and October as more firms ask for workers to be jabbed before they start on the job.

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Good or bad? Top cardiologist gives verdict on chocolate, coffee and wine

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Exclusive: Prof Thomas Lüscher assesses the heart healthiness of some of our favourite treats

Dark chocolate is a “joy” when it comes to keeping your heart healthy, coffee is likely protective, but wine is at best “neutral”, according to one of the world’s leading cardiologists.

As editor of the European Heart Journal for more than a decade, Prof Thomas Lüscher led a team that sifted through 3,200 manuscripts from scientists and doctors every year. Only a fraction – those deemed “truly novel” and backed up with “solid data” – would be selected for publication.

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First known Covid case was Wuhan market vendor, says scientist

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Claim will reignite debate about origins of pandemic, a continuing source of tension between US and China

The first known Covid-19 case was a vendor at the live-animal market in Wuhan, according to a scientist who has scrutinised public accounts of the earliest cases in China.

The chronology is at odds with a timeline laid out in an influential World Health Organization (WHO) report, which suggested an accountant with no apparent link to the Hunan market was the first known case.

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Man’s severe migraines ‘completely eliminated’ on plant-based diet

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Migraines disappeared after man started diet that included lots of dark-green leafy vegetables, study shows

Health experts are calling for more research into diet and migraines after doctors revealed a patient who had suffered severe and debilitating headaches for more than a decade completely eliminated them after adopting a plant-based diet.

He had tried prescribed medication, yoga and meditation, and cut out potential trigger foods in an effort to reduce the severity and frequency of his severe headaches – but nothing worked. The migraines made it almost impossible to perform his job, he said.

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