Category Archives: Microbiology

Covid distancing may have weakened children’s immune system, experts say

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End of social distancing and mask-wearing could leave children vulnerable to common bugs

Scientists are concerned that measures to combat Covid-19 have weakened the immune systems of young children who have not been able to build up resistance to common bugs, leaving them vulnerable when mask-wearing and social distancing eventually end.

Contact with viral pathogens happens on a fairly regular basis and although it does not always lead to sickness, the exposure helps shore the immune system against the threat should the bugs be encountered again.

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Human challenge: the people volunteering to be infected with Covid

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Amid claims PM wanted to be infected with Covid on TV, volunteers tell of taking part in a human challenge trial

If Dominic Cummings is to be believed, Boris Johnson was so sceptical that Covid-19 was a threat early last year that he was willing to inject himself with the virus that causes the disease on television. But there are actual volunteers – young and healthy people – who elected to be infected with the virus, all in the name of science.

These volunteers lined up to participate in “human challenge trials”, which have long been successfully employed to develop vaccines for diseases from typhoid to cholera.

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Coronavirus news: UK records another 3,398 cases and seven deaths; Italy reports fall in daily fatalities

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Health experts urge caution on giving Covid vaccines to UK children; Victoria records five new cases of Covid-19 taking Melbourne outbreak to 35

Anti-vaccine protest in London descends into clashes between protesters and police.

Boris Johnson and the UK government are too busy “covering their own backs” to properly counter the threat posed by the Indian coronavirus variant, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed.

Following Dominic Cummings’ explosive evidence about the prime minister’s handling of the pandemic, Sir Keir said “mistakes are being repeated” as the government considers whether to further ease restrictions.

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Vietnam discovers new hybrid Covid variant, state media reports

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Strain is a combination of UK and India variants and is said to spread quickly

Vietnam has discovered a new Covid-19 variant which spreads quickly by air and is a combination of variants first identified in India and the UK, state media has reported.

The country is struggling to deal with fresh outbreaks across more than half of its territory including industrial zones and big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

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Coronavirus live news: Britain records 2,694 new Covid cases; Dominic Cummings criticises government over lockdowns

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Germany to bar visitors from UK over Covid variants of concern; sewage samples being tested across England to monitor Covid variants

Australia has now administered more than 3.5m doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, with a further 89,000 jabs delivered around the country.

New South Wales delivered 12,485 doses in the past 24 hours, becoming another one-day record for the state. Around 5000 of them were administered at its Olympic Park mass vaccination hub alone, AAP reports.

Malaysia has reported a further 6,320 coronavirus cases amid a recent surge in infections, as well as 50 new deaths. Saturday’s figures compare with 4,140 cases and 44 deaths a week today.

The nation reported a record high of 6,806 new cases on Thursday when it also saw its highest daily toll of 59 deaths. Taking the total number of cases since the onset of the pandemic to 505,115, Reuters reports.

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Pfizer and AstraZeneca ‘highly effective’ against India Covid variant

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A Public Health England study has revealed the vaccines can be up to 88% effective after a second dose

Both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs are highly effective at protecting people from the strain of the Covid-19 virus first found in India, a study by Public Health England (PHE) has found.

The analysis, carried out between 5 April and 16 May, found the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain. For its part, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective, compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period.

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India variant will be dominant UK Covid strain ‘in next few days’

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Scientists’ warning comes as government comes under pressure to explain border policy

The Covid variant first detected in India is set to be the dominant strain in the UK within days, experts have said, with the government and health teams struggling to contain cases, which have risen by more than 75% since Thursday.

With the rapid spread of the more transmissible B.1.617.2 variant threatening to reverse moves to ease lockdown, the government faced intense pressure to more fully explain the delay in adding India to the so-called red list of countries.

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India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK

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Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

It was all looking so good. After a brutal second wave in the winter, the lockdown combined with the swift rollout of vaccines forced infections, hospitalisations and deaths down to levels not seen since last summer. The vaccines performed better than expected, not only in preventing deaths, but in hampering the spread of the virus. Scientific advisers were confident about England’s cautious roadmap back to a life more normal: the worst, it seemed, was over.

Now, those same advisers are deeply worried that the new variant of concern from India, B.1.617.2, could undermine the hard-won achievement. The government strategy has been to ease restrictions as vaccines reach more people, aiming for a delicate balance that opens up society while preventing another wave that overwhelms the NHS.

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Indian Covid variant: which countries have highest infection rates?

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Some data suggests variant has ‘increased transmissibility’ compared with other strains

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday the Indian Covid-19 variant was a global concern, with some data suggesting the variant has “increased transmissibility” compared with other strains.

Outside India, the UK has recorded the highest number of cases of the Indian variant, at 1,587 cases to date. The US, Singapore and Germany are the only other countries to have sequenced more than 100 cases of the B.1.617+ variant, according to the Gisaid Initiative.

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Workers at Indonesian pharma firm arrested over ‘reused’ Covid swabs

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Nasal swabs allegedly washed, repackaged and sold to passengers required to take test at Medan airport

Staff at an Indonesian pharmaceutical company have been accused of washing and repackaging used Covid nasal swabs, which were then sold to thousands of unsuspecting travellers.

Five employees from the state-owned Kimia Farma have been arrested, while the company may also face a civil lawsuit over the claims.

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As UK nears zero Covid deaths, there’s good reason for optimism

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Analysis: the vaccine strategy and staggered easing of restrictions have worked well. The next step is crucial

The handling of the coronavirus crisis in the UK has provided few moments to celebrate, but the day we reach zero deaths from the disease will clearly be one to toast. That day may not be far off. On Tuesday, the UK reported four Covid deaths within 28 days of a positive test. On Monday it was only one. Months of painful lockdown, in the face of more transmissible variants, and the rapid rollout of effective vaccines, have proven their worth. We have good reason to feel optimistic for the months ahead.

No one will have forgotten the brutal winter. In January alone, the UK reported nearly 32,000 Covid deaths, an appalling tally directly linked to locking down too late. In April, the death toll fell to 753. This month, scientists advising the government expect deaths to fall further. It is worth remembering that it’s been more than nine months since the UK last reported zero Covid deaths. We may see more in May, though people will continue to die of Covid, and the numbers might well rise again when restrictions are lifted on indoor mixing.

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Covering India’s Covid crisis: ‘Hundreds of journalists have lost their lives’

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Our South Asia correspondent reflects on a catastrophe that is now affecting the lives of almost everyone in the country


You recently lost a close colleague, Kakoli Bhattacharya, to Covid-19. Can you tell us about her and the important work that she did?

Kakoli was the Guardian’s news assistant over here and had worked for us since 2009. She could find any number or contact I needed and smoothed over any and all of the bureaucratic challenges that working in India can present. She made reporting here a huge joy, when it could be a huge challenge, and she was hugely well thought of by journalists for other organisations too. More than that, though, she was the person who welcomed me to Delhi. She knew the region inside out. She was incredibly warm and was someone I could always call on. The Guardian’s India coverage won’t be the same without her.

Related: ‘Warm, kind, wise and brilliant’: Guardian writers remember Kakoli Bhattacharya

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Scientists find way to remove polluting microplastics with bacteria

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Sticky property of bacteria used to create microbe nets that can capture microplastics in water to form a recyclable blob

Microbiologists have devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment – and they want to use bacteria to do the job.

Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates an adhesive substance called “biofilm” – we see it every morning when brushing our teeth and getting rid of dental plaque, for example. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this sticky bacteria property and create tape-like microbe nets that can capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob.

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Q&A: Covid vaccines offered to people 42 and over in England – what happens next?

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Younger people invited to get jab at more than 1,600 sites across country

The Covid-19 vaccine rollout has been extended in England for the second time in two days. Adults aged 42 and over are now able to book their jab.

Here are your questions answered as the NHS in England takes another step forward in the biggest vaccination programme in its history.

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Mutations, politics, vaccines: the factors behind India’s Covid crisis

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Analysis: experts believe a number of things coalesced to cause the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak

India is now identifying more than 1 million coronavirus cases every three days, with many times more thought to be going unregistered in a vast country where public health surveillance is often poor. Daily deaths exceeded 2,800 on Sunday, but these too are thought to be many times higher.

Epidemiologists and other experts are speculating that several factors have coalesced over the past months to bring India to the point of the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreak.

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Mallorca man arrested for infecting 22 people with Covid

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Police arrest man on suspicion of assault for going to work and the gym despite signs he had the virus

A Mallorca man who infected 22 people with Covid-19 has been arrested on suspicion of assault for going to work and the gym despite signs he had the virus, police have said.

Officers on the Spanish island began investigating at the end of January after an outbreak in the town of Manacor, following reports an employee had “become infected but hidden his illness”, a statement said on Saturday.

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‘We’re the poo crew’: sleuths test for Covid by reading signs in sewage

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Scientists in Exeter are identifying Covid through human faeces – this could be be expanded to monitor other diseases

They call themselves the “poo crew” – a team of health detectives who are tracking down and heading off Covid outbreaks by reading the signs in our sewage. And they are expanding. Earlier this month, the Environmental Monitoring for Health Protection Programme opened a purpose-built laboratory on the fringes of Exeter, its sterile interior in stark contrast to the unsanitary subject of its investigations.

The opening of the laboratory marks a dramatic expansion of what was, until less than a year ago, just a soil pipe dream: testing sewage for coronavirus to understand where it is circulating and get an early warning of future potential spikes in infection. In the future, this network could be expanded to monitor other infectious diseases including flu.

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Brazilian Covid variant: what do we know about P1?

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What threat does variant that is causing devastation in Brazil pose, and how is it different?

The P1 variant is causing devastation in Brazil, where an uncontrolled Covid pandemic is raging. P1, behind the terrible scenes of hospital overload in Manaus with patients’ relatives pleading for oxygen cylinders, is now the dominant form of coronavirus in many of Brazil’s cities and partly responsible for the high death toll. Other Latin American countries have closed their borders and restricted travel to and from Brazil but P1 is now in at least 15 countries in the Americas, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

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The ‘elite controllers’ who can naturally suppress HIV

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Research into how some HIV-positive people keep the virus at bay promises to yield new treatment possibilities, from vaccines to gene therapies

The year was 1998 when Joel Blankson encountered a patient he would never forget. Blankson was working in the HIV clinic at John Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, when an HIV-positive woman in her mid-40s arrived for some routine tests.

Blankson gave her a PCR test, intending to prescribe a newly developed combination of medicines called antiretroviral therapies to suppress the infection, and prevent her developing Aids.

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Brazil records 70,238 new cases; Netherlands halts AstraZeneca jab for under 60s – as it happened

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Country has registered more than 12.9 million cases; 10,000 appointments scrapped, reports Dutch news agency citing Netherlands health ministry

That’s it from the global blog team for now. Thanks for following our coverage, a new blog will be going live in a few hours.

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