Governor Kimberly Kay Reynolds in Iowa signed a bill recognizing that Covid is an endemic, not a pandemic. Meaning federal or government pandemic laws do not apply to Covid in Iowa. In case our federal government decides to do something stupid “pandemic related.” Finally! Someone recognizes that it’s an epidemic not a pandemic. The “pan” is from the Greek, it means all; as in its everywhere and everybody has it. Which is not the case. Endemic just means the virus is established and exists in an area. The government could still take measures to try to eradicate it, using the claim that they do not want it to spread to become endemic elsewhere.
God bless you Iowa, tell your Governor to keep up the work of the people!!!
More states need to follow her lead to avoid government overreach into their sovereignty.
The Vaccine doesn’t work. The CDC treatment Protocol doesn’t work.
A new COVID-19 variant called Mu that might be able to evade immunity from vaccines has been detected in almost every US state(Joshua Zitser) jzitser@businessinsider.com 20 hrs ago
- A new COVID-19 variant called Mu might be able to evade the immunity people get from vaccines, Insider reported.
- The Mu variant has been detected in 47 US states and the District of Columbia, according to data from Outbreak.info.
- Only Nebraska, Vermont, and South Dakota are yet to detect a case, the data says.
A new variant of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says could have the ability to evade the immunity people get from vaccines and previous infections, has been detected in almost every US state, according to data from epidemiology and genomic database Outbreak.info.
Called Mu, the B.1.621 variant was first detected in Colombia in January this year. As of September 4, cases of the strain have been reported in 47 US states and the District of Columbia, Newsweek was first to report.
The only states without reported cases are Nebraska, Vermont, and South Dakota, according to Outbreak.info’s data.
The strain is currently most prevalent in Alaska, where data suggests that 139 reported cases account for 4 percent of the total 3,837 sequenced samples.
California has the highest number in terms of raw numbers, the data show, with 232 reported cases of the B.1.621 variant out of 139,930 sequenced. This accounts for less than one percent of those sampled.
The Mu variant accounts for fewer than one percent of total COVID-19 cases, with the Delta variant dominant in the US.
Earlier this week, Mu was added to the WHO’s “of interest” list of variants.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, said Thursday that the Mu variant did not represent an “immediate threat” to the US.
“This variant has a constellation of mutations that suggests that it would evade certain antibodies, not only monoclonal antibodies but vaccine- and convalescent serum-induced antibodies,” Fauci said during a COVID-19 press briefing on Thursday. “But there isn’t a lot of clinical data to suggest that. It is mostly laboratory in-vitro data,” he added.
Fauci said that health officials are “keeping a very close eye” on the situation.
The WHO noted in its weekly bulletin that further studies would need to be done on the mutated variant to see if it can evade immune defenses to COVID-19, Insider’s Cheryl Teh reported.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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Tu Youyou, discoverer of artemisinin for resistant malaria
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| Tu Youyou, Nobel Laureate in medicine in Stockholm December 2015. Photo by Bengt Nyman. December 6, 2015. |
The Chinese scientist Tu Youyou received the 2011 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for isolating a chemical agent to be used in the treatment of resistant malaria. Born in 1930, Tu came from a distinguished family of scholars; studied at the University of Beijing; and early on became interested in traditional Chinese as well as western medicine. She graduated in 1955 and spent two years studying traditional medicine compounds. She then worked as a research scientist, living in a poorly equipped apartment building in Beijing, with only two electrical household appliances: a telephone and a refrigerator to store her herb samples.
In 1967 the Chinese government instituted a massive project to fight malaria in North Vietnam and Southern China, involving more than 500 researchers from sixty military and civilian organizations. Tu, who at thirty-one held only an undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical science, was chosen to lead the program at her institution. Over the years her team tested more than 2,000 herb preparations, at first against malaria-infected red blood cells, and identified at least 640 with possible antimalarial activity. Among these were plants from the large Artemisia genus, which comprises some 200 to 400 species such as the common mugwort, sagebrush, wormwood, and tarragon.
At first the results were not encouraging. Later, some antimalarial activity was found in extracts of Artemisia annua (sagewort), traditionally used in Chinese medicine to treat fever. It was known as qinghao and had been recommended by Ge Hong (AD 384-346) in an ancient text on Emergency Remedies Kept Up One’s Sleeve. But results were inconsistent and not all samples had antimalarial activity. Then Tu understood from the ancient texts that heat was inimical to the extraction of the compound and that it destroyed its activity. She realized that the extraction process had to be done at lower temperatures, and when this was done it became possible to isolate the active ingredient (1971).
Once this was achieved, Tu Youyou felt that as head of her group she had the responsibility to volunteer to first try the drug on herself. It was well tolerated. They called it artemisinin, and its chemical structure was determined in 1975. It had a molecular weight of 282 Da. Later a hydroxyl group was added to the molecule, giving rise to the more clinically effective dihydroartemisinin. In subsequent clinical studies resistance developed quickly if the drug was used alone, leading to the drug and its various molecular modifications being used in combination with other agents to treat malaria. It has been estimated that the drug was administered in over a billion treatments and has had a massive impact in eradicating malaria from disease-endemic countries. Recently artemisinin was tested as a possible ingredient in a cocktail to be used against Covid-19 viral infections.
Tu received the Nobel Prize along with two other scientists, Satoshi Omara of Japan and William C. Campbell of the United States, who discovered ivermectin for treatment of filariasis and river blindness. As Tu had been the leader of a large team of scientists, the Nobel Prize award was not without controversy, but the consensus was that she deserved the major credit for the discovery even though the work had been the effort of many people. She modestly stated that “I think the honor not only belongs to me but also to all Chinese scientists.” There was also discussion whether the award vindicated traditional Chinese medicine or rewarded a scientific method to identify new active drugs. Tu herself regarded her achievement as a gift to humankind from traditional Chinese medicine. The Nobel committee honored her as “an exemplary pharmacognostical scholar who, along with her talented associates, successfully used a vigorous, modern, scientific approach to discover an antimalarial drug that can combat a malignant form of malaria.”
References:
- Ivan Barry Pless, Ray S. Wong, Xiao Quang Ding, and C.B. Lim. in Nobel and Lasker Laureates of Chinese Descent: In Literature and Science, edited by Todd S. Ing, Keith K. Lau, Joseph M. Chan, Hon-Lok Tang, Angela T. Hadsell, and Laurence K .Chan, Chapter 11, page 166 .
- Van Voorhis W.C., van Huijsduijnen R.H., Wells T. N.C. Profile of William C. Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura, and Youyou Tu, 2015 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine: Nat. Acad Scienc. 2015;112:52, (December 29), p. 15773
- Lucille Liu. Tu Youyou was awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine. China Story Yearbook, 2016, ANU Press.
Laboratory Findings Suggest Artemisia Annua May Point to Treatment for SARS-CoV-2 May 4, 2021
A team of researchers that includes Worcester Polytechnic Institute Biology Professor Pamela Weathers has found that extracts from the leaves of the Artemisia annua plant, a medicinal herb also known as sweet wormwood, inhibit the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and two of its recent variants.
The team, which included researchers from Columbia University in New York and the University of Washington at Seattle, also found that extracts of the plant were more effective against the virus when levels of a key therapeutic compound in the plant, artemisinin, were low. The in vitro findings led the researchers to suggest that one or more compounds in Artemisia annua, or A. annua, that have not yet been identified may point to a safe, low-cost therapeutic treatment for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The work was described in an article published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology.
“Artemisia annua has been studied extensively, and it has been used safely for more than 2,000 years in traditional medicine to treat a variety of fever-related ailments,” Weathers said. “A. annua could provide clues to new safe, cost-effective small molecule therapies or even be used as an antiviral nutraceutical.”
The researchers soaked dried leaves of A. annua, obtained from four continents in hot water and tested the solutions against SARS-CoV-2 and two variants originating from the United Kingdom and South Africa. Some leaf samples were 12 years old but still potent against the virus. Researchers also tested artemisinin alone against the viruses, but the plant extracts were more potent. Artemisinin is a compound naturally produced by the plant, but is usually extracted, chemically modified, and developed in combination with other drugs to treat malaria.
Results showed that the extracts of A. annua did not block the virus from entering cells but interfered with the virus’ ability to replicate, thus killing it. In addition, the anti-replication activity did not appear linked to artemisinin or flavonoids, which are natural substances in the plants.
Weathers has long studied different strains of Artemisia, which are grown around the world. She recently was a co-author on papers exploring the anti-malaria properties of artemisinin and the impact of A. annua and artemisinin extracts on the malaria parasite. She also is collaborating on a study at WPI to identify compounds in A. annua that may be effective against the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis.
Weathers said more work is needed to identify the compound or combination of compounds in A. annua responsible for inhibiting viral replication.
“These findings add to evidence emerging from other labs around the world that this plant possesses compounds that could help patients who are infected with COVID-19,” Weathers said. “We also know that the plant possesses compounds that inhibit inflammation and the formation of scar-like tissues known as fibrosis, which also affect patients with COVID-19. Together, these characteristics point to a plant that bears a lot more study.”
Recent lab studies by chemists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam, Germany) in close collaboration with virologists at Freie Universität Berlin have shown that extract from the medicinal plant Artemisia annua, also known as Sweet Wormwood, is active against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new potential treatment has been added to the University of Kentucky’s innovative clinical trial for experimental COVID-19 therapies, which was launched by leaders from UK’s Markey Cancer Center, College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy in May.
The new arms of the clinical trial will test the effectiveness of Artemisia annua extract as well as artesunate, a derivative of the plant that is a standard treatment for malaria in many parts of the world.
The new trial arm is supported by ArtemiLife, which recently collaborated with UK on a clinical study using Artemisia annua grown in Kentucky to test for the anti-cancer activity of its extract and to determine the recommended dose of Artemisia annua for future clinical trials.
“The University of Kentucky and UK Markey Cancer Center are delighted to continue our collaboration with ArtemiLife to study this Kentucky-grown Artemisia annua as a potential treatment for patients with COVID infections,” said Jill Kolesar PharmD, co-leader of the Drug Development Program at Markey Cancer Center and professor in the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.
The ongoing trial has a “pick-the-winner” design, which will allow UK researchers to rapidly understand what potential therapies appear to be effective, guiding patients to treatments that work and researchers to promising drugs that warrant further investigation.
“While there is no standard treatment for COVID-19, this trial gives us the ability to test multiple therapies rapidly in order to identify the most promising agents,” said Dr. Susanne Arnold, a medical oncologist and associate director of clinical translation at the UK Markey Cancer Center who is co-leading the trial. “This rapid assessment means that the trial can quickly include and test new therapies such as Artemisia annua.”
Each treatment is selected by a multidisciplinary committee of medical experts from across the university as some of the most unique and promising compounds that can be studied at the moment. The drugs are also attractive candidates for repurposing for treatment of COVID-19 considering they have excellent safety profiles and are readily available, rapidly scalable, and relatively inexpensive.
UK’s clinical trial is reserved for high-risk patients both at home and in the hospital who have tested positive for COVID-19, or who have COVID-19 symptoms but have not developed severe symptoms that would require intensive care unit treatment. Patients with COVID-19 who choose to enroll in the trial will be randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups including Artemisia annua.
UK’s COVID-19 related research is coordinated by the COVID-19 Unified Research Experts (CURE) Alliance team, which is uniting UK medical researchers across disciplines in the fight against the novel coronavirus. The Alliance was launched and is supported by UK College of Medicine Dean Robert DiPaola and Vice President for Research Lisa Cassis.
The team plans to scale up a larger, more traditional placebo-control clinical trial using the most promising therapy from the pick-the-winner trial.