Amazon COVID-19 Tracking in Chicago

The reason for the recent trip: Iquitos had a maximum incidence of COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, and they sought to perceive how the relative isolation of the big city was affecting the spread of viral variants in the region. Peru also had the highest COVID-19 death rate of the pandemic, mostly due to the higher mortality observed during the early stages of sars-CoV-2 expansion.

The scientists’ trips through South America, which also included Lima, Peru and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, are an effort through Robert J. Havey, MD, Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health to expand the global SARS-CoV-2 sequencing network in regions where reporting viral genetic data is low or nearly non-existent. They need to build the capacity of South American scientists and public fitness experts to conduct local research.

Lorenzo-Redondo and Ozer, both assistant professors of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, are part of a team at the Center for Pathogen Genomics and Microbial Evolution (CPGME), a component of the Havey Institute for Global Health. The team has been the virus in Chicago and around the world since the beginning of the pandemic. His team has already worked with collaborators in Africa, in the countries of Nigeria, Mali and Guinea, for series of COVID-19 samples from undersampled regions.

“If you look at the global public repository of all SARS-CoV-2 sequences, less than 1% comes from the African continent and less than 2% comes from South America,” said Ozer, director of the CPGME. “Compare that to North America or Europe, where the vast majority of images are provided. This leads to massive disparities in the wisdom of what circulates in other parts of the world. “

Creating a collaboration of COVID-19 scientists

The scientists met with doctors and researchers from hospitals in Peru and Bolivia to help study SARS-CoV-2 variants in their regions. This includes sending some samples to the U. S. South American establishments for scientists to track COVID-19 in their countries.

The goal is to have a network of collaborative work around the world so that scientists can work together and share their expertise and data to temporarily respond to new advances in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and long-term outbreaks of emerging or re-emerging pathogens. .

“The emergence of a new variant anywhere in the world puts us all at risk,” said Judd Hultquist, Ph. D. , an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and associate director of CPGME. Scale is imperative for us to be in one position when the next variant appears. “

How Omicron’s Early Warning in South Africa Helped the United States

An example of this well-working early precaution formula is the early detection of omicron in South Africa, even before omicron is detected in countries with a maximum.

“Because South Africa kidnapped at the right time, they were able to sound the alarm a full month before Chicago saw its first case of omicron,” Hultquist said.

This additional time was imperative for scientists to be more informed about the variant, the dangers it posed, and to implement appropriate remedy methods even before it reached the United States.

South African scientists have found that many monoclonal antibodies (specific antibodies given to critically ill patients to bind to viruses and neutralize them) that are used lately for COVID-19 patients are not effective for omicron. Thanks to this early warning, American doctors have been able to treat patients. with the maximum effective therapies.

The Northwest team is now recapping the history of the pandemic in Chicago since the first case of COVID-19 detected in the city. “We will look at clinical outcomes as opposed to variants and demographics,” Lorenzo-Redondo said. the knowledge to see the points of worst outcomes, differences in variants, and how the virus spreads. “

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