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(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some of the most recent scientific studies on the new coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
COVID-19 much more deadly than seasonal flu
COVID-19 is three times more deadly than seasonal flu, according to researchers in France who compared 89,530 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 earlier this year with 45,819 patients hospitalized with influenza between December 2018 and February 2019. The rate mortality was 16.9% versus 5.8. %, which is “particularly surprising when you remember that the 2018/2019 influenza season had been the worst in the last five years in France in terms of the number of deaths,” said Dr. Catherine Quantin, Dijon University Hospital , in a press release. . More COVID-19 patients came to intensive care units (16.3% vs. 10.8%) and the average stay in the ICU was almost double (15 days vs. 8 days), his team reported Thursday in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. COVID-19 patients were also more likely to need mechanical ventilation and to suffer from lung failure. In another study published Wednesday in The BMJ, American researchers found that people hospitalized for COVID-19 had higher risks of organ failure and death, and greater use of health resources, compared to people hospitalized for the flu. (https://bit.ly/3nJuVjC; https://bit.ly/2J1hOeE)
Oxygen monitoring devices are less reliable in black patients
COVID-19 can cause blood oxygen levels to drop dangerously low, and the devices used to monitor these levels are far less reliable in black patients than in white patients, a large study found. So-called pulse oximeters are placed on the tip of a finger and pass red and infrared light through the skin to measure oxygen levels in the blood, which darkens when the levels drop. Because pulse oximeters were primarily tested on whites when they were developed, they are calibrated for fair-skinned people. Among 1,609 patients studied this year at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, the devices did not detect low oxygen levels in 11.7% of black patients compared to 3.6% of white patients. When the researchers studied an additional 8,392 patients treated in 178 intensive care units in 2014-2015, they found that pulse oximeters bypassed low oxygen levels in 17.0% of blacks versus 6.2% of whites. “Given the widespread use of pulse oximetry for medical decision-making, these findings have some important implications, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic,” the researchers warned Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Reliance on pulse oximetry to classify patients and adjust supplemental oxygen levels may increase risk for black patients.” (https://bit.ly/3gDRjrZ; https://bit.ly/3gNjncy)
Minority COVID-19 Patients May Benefit From Tocilizumab
Among hospitalized mostly non-white patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, Roche’s arthritis drug Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, lowered the odds of needing mechanical ventilation or dying. Among the 389 volunteers in one study, the combined risk of these events was 12% in patients randomized to receive tocilizumab in addition to standard care, compared to 19% in those who received a placebo. However, looking only at the risk of death, the rates in the two groups were similar, the researchers reported Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine. Tocilizumab also did not speed up the patients’ hospital discharge or the time it took for their medical condition to improve. Previous studies did not focus on racial or ethnic minorities and had mixed results. Earlier this month, a different team of doctors reported that the drug reduced the risk of death for patients in hospital, but the difference was not statistically significant. The Infectious Diseases Society of America does not currently recommend the routine use of tocilizumab in hospitalized patients. (https://bit.ly/2KHvITB)
Open https://tmsnrt.rs/3a5EyDh in an external browser to see a Reuters chart on vaccines and treatments in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks and Gene Emery; Editing by Tiffany Wu)
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