Which vaccination strategy against COVID-19?

BACKGROUND: Bottlenecks in the production and supply pipeline of vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 have led some countries to consider the option of dose-sparing strategies (e.g., increasing the number of people who receive some vaccine by halving the dose or increasing the interval between doses). In this study we assess the contribution of vaccination strategies to reducing the mortality induced by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. METHODS: This study focuses on the evolution of the pandemic and related vaccination efforts in five countries that have adopted different vaccination strategies or have experienced a bottleneck in their vaccine supply. The analysis is conducted using an autoregressive time-series approach through a system of simultaneous equations. RESULTS: The outcome of the early months of the vaccination campaign in containing the number of deaths induced by the epidemic varies across our sample. Overall, our results highlight the effective role played by the vaccine in containing the death toll induced by the epidemic. We could not find evidence of reduced effectiveness of the second dose in the presence of an extended inter-dose interval. The effectiveness of the vaccination campaign results appears to be strongly affected by the stability of vaccine supply. CONCLUSIONS: The vaccine is effective in containing the deaths caused by the virus, particularly when multiple doses have been administered. The stability of the vaccine pipeline plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of the vaccination campaign.

The contribution of testing in the fight against COVID-19: evidence from Italy.

BACKGROUND: In response to the epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a few countries have rolled out widespread testing of the population, while in other countries only people requiring hospital admission are being screened. After an extensive testing strategy during the initial few weeks in the early phase of the epidemic, the Italian Ministry of Health made its testing policy more stringent. In this study we assess the contribution of the testing policy containing the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in Northern Italy. METHODS: The analysis is focused on the evolution of the epidemic and related health intervention in four regions where ∼80% of the national death toll due to COVID-19 has occurred. The assumed under-estimation of asymptomatic cases has led us to make use of the number of deaths due to the epidemic to analyze the effectiveness of testing. The analysis is conducted through an autoregressive time-series approach where we use official data from the Ministry of Health. RESULTS: The results of the analysis confirm a negative relationship between the number of tests carried out and the progression of the epidemic. In particular, results reveal that the tests are particularly effective in breaking the chain of transmission when they are implemented at the early stages of the spread of the virus. CONCLUSIONS: A large-scale testing policy is recommended as a critical contribution to effectively contain the epidemic. In addition, it is highly recommended to set up all necessary measures to enable the quick scale-up of testing capacity whenever required.

Identification of Kiwellin-like Proteins in Fruits by Using In Silico Tools.

Identification of allergen proteins by using wet-lab technology is a time-consuming and also costly process. In recent years, thanks to the developments in the field of bioinformatics, it is now possible to estimate the allergen proteins by using in silico tools. In the present study, it is aimed to find kiwellin-like proteins from different fruits samples by using bioinformatics tools. According to the results of the study, six proteins from Corchorus olitorius, Cucumis sativus, Capsicum chinense, Carica papaya, Morus notabilis and Jatropha curcas were defined as the allergens. In conclusion, in silico tools developed under the field of bioinformatics can provide a big contribution to the estimation of unknown allergen proteins in different fruits. Based on the in silico results, physicians can suggest people who have allergenicity to kiwellin not to consume the fruits that contain kiwellin-like proteins.