natural immunity
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2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Waxman ◽  
Maya Makov-Assif ◽  
Ben Reis ◽  
Doron Nezer ◽  
Ran Balicer ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction: With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, accurate assessment of population immunity and the effectiveness of booster and enhancer vaccines is critical. Methods We compare COVID-19-related hospitalization incidence rate ratios, adjusted for potential demographic, clinical and health-seeking-behavior confounders, in 2,412,755 individuals (235,552,274 person-days), across four exposures: 2 BNT162b2 doses, 5 or more months prior ("non-recent vaccine immunity"); 3 BNT162b2 doses (“boosted vaccine immunity”); previous COVID-19, with or without a subsequent BNT162b2 dose (“natural immunity” and “enhanced natural immunity” respectively). Results Compared with non-recent vaccine immunity, COVID-19-related hospitalization incidence rate ratios are 11% (9%-13%) for boosted vaccine immunity, 34% (23%-50%) for natural immunity and 25% (17%-39%) for enhanced natural immunity. Conclusion We demonstrate that natural immunity (enhanced or not) provides better protection against COVID-19-related hospitalization than non-recent vaccine immunity, but less protection than that attained from booster vaccination. Additionally, our results suggest that vaccinating individuals with natural immunity further enhances their protection.


2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Gyea Nuripuoh ◽  
Abudu Ballu Duwiejuah ◽  
Noel Bakobie

AbstractWaste picking is a pivotal in achieving sustainable waste management, environment health and economic development in the era of sustainable development. The study assessed the practices, knowledge, perception and health risk protection behaviours of waste scavengers in the Gbalahi landfill site. A total of 60 scavengers were conveniently sampled and interviewed. The study revealed that 93% of the waste scavengers sort waste using hooks and their bare hands. The study also showed 62% of the respondents have ever been physically abused by other scavengers. A good number of scavengers believed they have been fortified against “dirt diseases” during their childhood and have developed natural immunity against diseases. The knowledge of scavengers was skewed towards economic benefits as they viewed waste picking as a survival strategy. Discrimination and physical abuse posed a seemingly significant psychological health risk to majority of them. Safety and protection practices are limited to the use of pieces of clothes to cover the nose, wearing of multiple clothes and worn-out boots recovered from the landfill. Most of the respondents risk being exposed to the virus and pathogens. It is recommended that education and increased sensitisation should be encouraged and implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana Health Service and other allied institutions in order to regularise and ensure the health and safety of waste scavengers.


2022 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-91
Author(s):  
Tülay Özcan ◽  
Miray Özcan

Milk fat has an important role in the formation of fla-vour, aroma, texture proper-ties and quality in milk and dairy products, and milk fat is encapsulated in the glob-ule membrane. Milk fat contains triglycerides, phospholipids, free sterols, β-carotene (provitamin A), fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), sphingomyelins and fatty acids. In addition to its nutritional value, specific short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids found in milk fat are important for health as an energy source for muscle, heart, liver, kid-ney, blood platelets and nervous system. In addition, these fatty acids do not pose a risk of obesity; they also prevent ulcerative colitis, cancer, atherosclerosis and hypertension, and increase natural immunity with their anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial effects. Fermented cream, which has a high fat content, is becoming more and more popular in many countries with its nutritional value and its use for many purposes in culinary culture. The classification of fer-mented creams, fat content, production method and used starter cultures vary by country. In this study, fer-mented cream produced in Turkey and in the world classification, production stages, the parameters af-fecting the sensory and tex-tural properties was investi-gated.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Zezelj ◽  
Marija Petrović ◽  
Anja Ivanović ◽  
Predrag Kurčubić

Health care policies often rely on public cooperation, especially during a health crisis. However, a crisis is also a period of uncertainty and proliferation of health related advice: while some people adhere to the official recommendations, others tend to avoid them and resort to non-evidence based, pseudoscientific practices. People prone to the latter are often the ones endorsing a set of epistemically suspect beliefs, with two being particularly relevant: conspiratorial pandemic-related beliefs, and the appeal to nature bias (i.e. trusting natural immunity to fight the pandemic). These in turn are rooted in trust in different epistemic authorities, seen as mutually exclusive: trust in science and trust in the “wisdom of the common man”. Drawing from two nationally representative probability samples, we tested a model in which trust in science/wisdom of the common man predicted COVID-19 vaccination status (Study 1, N = 1001) or vaccination status alongside use of pseudoscientific health practices (Study 2, N = 1010), through COVID-19 conspiratorial beliefs and the appeal to nature bias. As expected, epistemically suspect beliefs were interrelated, related to vaccination status, and to both types of trust. Moreover, trust in science had both a direct and indirect effect on vaccination status through both types of epistemically suspect beliefs. Trust in the wisdom of the common man had only an indirect effect on vaccination status. Contrary to the way they are typically portrayed, the two types of trust were unrelated. These results were largely replicated in the second study, in which we added pseudoscientific practices as an outcome; trust in science and the wisdom of the common man contributed to their prediction only indirectly, through epistemically suspect beliefs. We offer recommendations on how to make use of different types of epistemic authorities and how to tackle unfounded beliefs in communication during a health crisis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 490-496
Author(s):  
Andrew Nakibinge Kiboneka

Immunity is the state of protection against foreign pathogens or substances(antigens). Host defence mechanisms consist of innate immunity (natural immunity), which mediates the initial protection against infections, and adaptive immunity (specific/acquired immunity), which develops more slowly and provides more specialized and more effective defence against infections. The immune system evolved to protect multicellular organisms against pathogens. The body is protected against pathogens by a variety of effector cells and molecules that together make up the immune system. All the cellular elements of blood, including the red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells of the immune system, ultimately derive from the hematopoietic stem cells of the bone marrow. The cells of the adaptive immune system consist of lymphocytes, antigen-presenting cells and effector cells that eliminate microbes. Strategies of avoidance, and tolerance represent different ways of dealing with pathogens. Anatomic barriers and chemical barriers e.g complement and antimicrobial proteins may be considered as primary forms of avoidance.Macrophages,neutrophils and dendritic cells are important cells that that detect infection. Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) recognize simple molecules and regular patterns of molecular structures called pathogen associated molecular patterns. Some PRR are transmembrane proteins e.g Toll like receptors (TLRs). Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases, before they come into contact with them. Immunization is the process whereby a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. Inappropriate immune responses can result into hypersensitivity, autoimmune disease or immune deficiency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Giovanetti ◽  
Vagner Fonseca ◽  
Eduan Wilkinson ◽  
Houriiyah Tegally ◽  
Emmanuel James San ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 epidemic in Brazil was driven mainly by the spread of Gamma (P.1), a locally emerged Variant of Concern (VOC) that was first detected in early January 2021. This variant was estimated to be responsible for more than 96% of cases reported between January and June 2021, being associated with increased transmissibility and disease severity, a reduction in neutralization antibodies and effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, as well as diagnostic detection failure. Here we show that, following several importations predominantly from the USA, the Delta variant rapidly replaced Gamma after July 2021. However, in contrast to what was seen in other countries, the rapid spread of Delta did not lead to a large increase in the number of cases and deaths reported in Brazil. We suggest that this was likely due to the relatively successful early vaccination campaign coupled with natural immunity acquired following prior infection with Gamma. Our data reinforces reports of the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant and, considering the increasing concern due to the recently identified Omicron variant, argues for the necessity to strengthen genomic monitoring on a national level to quickly detect and curb the emergence and spread of other VOCs that might threaten global health.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Alejandro Cortés-Leal ◽  
Carolina Del-Valle-Soto ◽  
Cesar Cardenas ◽  
Leonardo J. Valdivia ◽  
Jose Alberto Del Puerto-Flores

The emergence of Industry 4.0 technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), has prompted a reconsideration of methodologies for network security as well as reducing operation and maintenance costs, especially at the physical layer, where the energy consumption plays an important role. This article demonstrates through simulations and experiments that, while the cooperative scheme is more efficient when a WSN is at normal operating conditions, the collaborative scheme offers more enhanced protection against the aggressiveness of jamming in the performance metrics, thus making it safer, reducing operation and maintenance costs and laying the foundations for jamming mitigation. This document additionally offers an algorithm to detect jamming in real time. Firstly, it examines the characteristics and damages caused by the type of aggressor. Secondly, it reflects on the natural immunity of the WSN (which depends on its node density and a cooperative or collaborative configuration). Finally, it considers the performance metrics, especially those that impact energy consumption during transmission.


PLoS Medicine ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. e1003879
Author(s):  
Laith J. Abu-Raddad ◽  
Hiam Chemaitelly ◽  
Houssein H. Ayoub ◽  
Peter Coyle ◽  
Joel A. Malek ◽  
...  

Background The epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 (or Alpha) variant is insufficiently understood. This study’s objective was to describe the introduction and expansion of this variant in Qatar and to estimate the efficacy of natural infection against reinfection with this variant. Methods and findings Reinfections with the B.1.1.7 variant and variants of unknown status were investigated in a national cohort of 159,003 individuals with prior PCR-confirmed infections and a national cohort of 43,127 antibody-positive individuals. Infections with B.1.1.7 and variants of unknown status were also investigated in a national comparator cohort of 150,106 antibody-negative individuals. B.1.1.7 was first identified in Qatar on 25 December 2020. Sudden, large B.1.1.7 epidemic expansion was observed starting on 18 January 2021, triggering the onset of epidemic’s second wave, 7 months after the first wave. B.1.1.7 was about 60% more infectious than the original (wild-type) circulating variants. Among persons with a prior PCR-confirmed infection, the efficacy of natural infection against reinfection was estimated to be 97.5% (95% CI: 95.7% to 98.6%) for B.1.1.7 and 92.2% (95% CI: 90.6% to 93.5%) for variants of unknown status. Among antibody-positive persons, the efficacy of natural infection against reinfection was estimated to be 97.0% (95% CI: 92.5% to 98.7%) for B.1.1.7 and 94.2% (95% CI: 91.8% to 96.0%) for variants of unknown status. A main limitation of this study is assessment of reinfections based on documented PCR-confirmed reinfections, but other reinfections could have occurred and gone undocumented. Conclusions In this study, we observed that introduction of B.1.1.7 into a naïve population can create a major epidemic wave, but natural immunity in those previously infected was strongly associated with limited incidence of reinfection by B.1.1.7 or other variants.


Author(s):  
Hiam Chemaitelly ◽  
Roberto Bertollini ◽  
Laith J. Abu-Raddad
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Ying Sun ◽  
Jingtong Zheng

Protozoan parasite infection causes severe diseases in humans and animals, leading to tremendous economic and medical pressure. Natural immunity is the first line of defence against parasitic infection. Currently, the role of natural host immunity in combatting parasitic infection is unclear, so further research on natural host immunity against parasites will provide a theoretical basis for the prevention and treatment of related parasitic diseases. Extracellular traps (ETs) are an important natural mechanism of immunity involving resistance to pathogens. When immune cells such as neutrophils and macrophages are stimulated by external pathogens, they release a fibrous network structure, consisting mainly of DNA and protein, that can capture and kill a variety of extracellular pathogenic microorganisms. In this review, we discuss the relevant recently reported data on ET formation induced by protozoan parasite infection, including the molecular mechanisms involved, and discuss the role of ETs in the occurrence and development of parasitic diseases.


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