Publications - June 2020

Preprint and peer-reviewed publications from RECOVER’s studies

Informal home care providers: the forgotten health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ying Yang Chan et al. 2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed pressure on many national health-care systems worldwide. Due to the rapid surge in caseloads and resource constraints in health systems, in many high-income settings, the focus has been on disease screening, with those who have severe disease prioritised for hospitalisation. But the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to an unprecedented reliance on home care as one pillar of the health-care system to support people with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

In public health emergencies, informal home care providers are a crucial human resource that improves the community’s health-care capacity, especially in regions with an ageing population and areas with suboptimal health-care systems. Yet our knowledge of the characteristics of these informal home care providers and the challenges they are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. Further research is needed to direct policy, guidelines, resources, clinical support, quality assurance, and monitoring and outcome evaluation for informal caregivers (panel).

Read article

Phenotype of SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cells in COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (Weiskopf et al. 2020)

SARS-CoV-2 has been identified as the causative agent of a global outbreak of respiratory tract disease (COVID-19). In some patients the infection results in moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. High serum levels of IL-6 and an immune hyperresponsiveness referred to as a cytokine storm have been associated with poor clinical outcome. Despite the large numbers of cases and deaths, information on the phenotype of SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cells is scarce. The article aims to stimulate further studies into the role of T-cells in COVID-19, support vaccine design and facilitate the evaluation of vaccine candidate immunogenicity. (Weiskopf et al. 2020).

Read preprint article