Infectious Disease

The Arizona Biomedical Research Centre awarded funds to the CoVHORT research study to support research into long COVID symptoms.

Wastewater-based epidemiology's potential was brought to bear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it could help public health officials get ahead of the drug-resistant fungus Candida auris.

Three years into the pandemic, many medical experts have let their guards down and resumed some semblance of normal life, though most agree there is still a time and place for COVID-19 precautions, The Washington Post reported March 12.

While those on the front line have no official cause of “where” or “how” the virus came to be, the United States Energy Department is out with a new report. The agency is claiming the virus could be from a lab leak in China, but not everyone is on board with the new findings.

Some diseases, like cancer, can progress silently, avoiding detection until it’s too late. An ultrasensitive sensor could detect a disease before symptoms appear, letting health care providers treat the disease early, when it’s still curable. The sensor could also be used in a COVID-19 breath test.

“There is not a consensus right now in the US government about exactly how Covid started,” US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.

A crucial question has eluded governments and health agencies around the world since the COVID-19 pandemic began: Did the virus originate in animals or leak from a Chinese lab? Now, the U.S. Department of Energy has assessed with “low confidence” in that it began with a lab leak, according to a person familiar with the report who wasn’t authorized to discuss it. The report has not been made public.

Dr. John Galgiani and the UArizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence are working to decrease the toll of the disease. Training programs & raising awareness for healthcare providers could increase early detection of Valley Fever and save lives.

BIO5 researcher, Dr. Deepta Bhattacharya, joins the conversation about how the immunity generated from a COVID-19 infection was found to be “at least as high, if not higher” than that provided by two doses of an mRNA vaccine.

Dr. Felicia Goodrum was named the 2022 Edith Sayre Auslander Emerging Visionary by the UArizona Commission on the Status of Women for her work empowering women, junior faculty, and students.