As more and more people become vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 worldwide, a few cases of rare adverse events, clotting-related or immune thrombocytopenia, have been reported with the adenoviral-vector based Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZ) or Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (J&J) vaccines.
The forced separation from family and friends and the disruption of regular activities brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect on people’s well-being and mental health.
Dr. Mel Krajden, COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) Leadership Group member and Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group (VSRG) member, and Dr. Danuta Skowronski, VSRG Effectiveness Working Party member, was part of a team evaluating the effectiveness of a single dose of a mRNA vaccine in people over 70.
Scientists from Université de Montréal, including Dr. Cecile Tremblay and CITF-funded researchers Drs. Daniel Kaufmann and Andrés Finzi, conducted a comprehensive study of the immune response against SARS-CoV-2, three weeks after a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly devastating for long-term care (LTC) residents and their communities.
Researchers, including CITF-supported researcher Dr. Angela Cheung, conducted a systematic review to document the prevalence of post-COVID-19 symptoms in people in the short term (4-12 weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19), as well as in the long term (after more than 12 weeks post-diagnosis).
The risk of death from COVID-19 for patients receiving hemodialysis is 25% - much higher than in the general population. One of the reasons for this is that hemodialysis patients have compromised immune systems.
CITF Leadership Group member Dr. Gina Ogilvie and VSRG Working Group member Dr. Manish Sadarangani have found, in a study published in BMC Public Health, that nearly 80% of British Columbians intend to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Patients with chronic kidney disease, including those on dialysis, have been prioritized for vaccination due to increased risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes such as hospitalization and death.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appeared that a hyperinflammatory state was responsible for significant morbidity and mortality in adults with acute COVID-19.