New study results are boosting hopes that there soon may be a simple, reliable way to help family doctors diagnose the most common form of dementia. Researchers say an experimental blood test was able to distinguish people with Alzheimer’s disease from those without it in several studies.
The accuracy ranged from 89% to 98%, though the test still needs more validation. Several companies are developing these tests, which measure a protein that damages the brains of people with the disease. The results were discussed at an Alzheimer’s conference Tuesday, and some were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Developing such a test has been a long-sought goal, and scientists warn that the new approach still needs more validation and is not yet ready for wide use.
But Tuesday’s results suggest they’re on the right track. The testing identified people with Alzheimer’s vs. no dementia or other types of it with accuracy ranging from 89% to 98%.
“That’s pretty good. We’ve never seen that” much precision in previous efforts, said Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association’s chief science officer.
Dr. Eliezer Masliah, neuroscience chief at the U.S. National Institute on Aging, agreed.
“The data looks very encouraging,” he said. The new testing “appears to be even more sensitive and more reliable” than earlier methods, but it needs to be tried in larger, more diverse populations, he said.Living a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s or other dementia, even if you have a genetic risk, a large study found.The institute had no role in these studies but financed earlier, basic research toward blood test development.
Results were discussed at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference taking place online because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some results also were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
More than 5 million people in the United States and many more worldwide have Alzheimer’s. Current drugs only temporarily ease symptoms and do not slow mental decline.
The disease is usually diagnosed through tests of memory and thinking skills, but that’s very imprecise and usually involves a referral to a neurologist. More reliable methods such as spinal fluid tests and brain scans are invasive or expensive, so a simple blood test that could be done in a family doctor’s office would be a big advance.
Last year, scientists reported encouraging results from experimental blood tests that measure abnormal versions of amyloid, one of two proteins that build up and damage Alzheimer’s patients’ brains. The new work focuses on the other protein — tau — and finds that one form of it called p-tau217 is a more reliable indicator. Several companies and universities have developed experimental p-tau217 tests.
Dr. Oskar Hansson of Lund University in Sweden led a study of Eli Lilly’s test on more than 1,400 people already enrolled in dementia studies in Sweden, Arizona and Colombia. They included people with no impairment, mild impairment, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
The p-tau217 test outperformed a host of other measures for indicating which patients had Alzheimer’s as verified by brain scans. It also was comparable to the brain scans and some spinal tests in accuracy.
The Arizona portion of the study included 81 people who had donated their brains upon death, so researchers were able to show that blood testing while they were alive closely matched evidence of disease later.
The Colombia part of the study included people with a rare gene that virtually destines them to develop Alzheimer’s at a young age, typically in their 40s. In those with the gene, p-tau217 blood levels started to rise “around 20 years before symptoms,” Hansson said.
The study’s sponsors include the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Swedish government health groups, the Alzheimer’s Association, many foundations and several companies. Some study leaders work for Lilly or consult for the company.
Two other research groups independently reported evidence for p-tau217 testing at the conference.
Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, found it helped distinguish people with Alzheimer’s from those with another neurological disease — frontotemporal lobar degeneration — with 96% accuracy in a study of 617 people.
Dr. Suzanne Schindler of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, also found p-tau217 better than some other indicators for revealing which patients had plaques in the brain — the hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
“When patients come to me with changes in their memory and thinking, one of the major questions is, what’s the cause? Is it Alzheimer’s disease or is it something else?” she said. If tau testing bears out, “it would help us diagnose people earlier and more accurately.”
Schindler has already launched a larger study in a diverse population in St. Louis. Researchers have done the same in Sweden.
If benefits are confirmed, Masliah, Carrillo and others say they hope a commercial test would be ready for wide use in about two years.  
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Is it possible to get the coronavirus more than once?  Scientists don’t know for sure yet, but they believe it’s unlikely.  Health experts think people who had COVID-19 will have some immunity against a repeat infection. But they don’t know how much protection or how long it would last.  There have been reports of people testing positive for the virus weeks after they were believed to have recovered, leading some to think they may have been reinfected. More likely, experts say, people were suffering from the same illness or the tests detected remnants of the original infection. There’s also the chance that tests could have been false positives.  Scientists say there has been no documented instance of a patient spreading the virus to others after retesting positive.  With similar viruses, studies have shown that people could fall sick again three months to a year after their first infections. It’s still too early to know whether that’s also possible with the coronavirus.  “It’s very much emerging science,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the global public health program at Boston College.  A small U.S. study published last week also found the antibodies that fight the coronavirus may last only a few months in people with mild illness, suggesting people could become susceptible again. But antibodies aren’t the only defense against a virus, and the other parts of the immune system could also help provide protection.  Settling the question of whether reinfection is possible is important. If it can occur, that could undermine the idea of “immunity passports” for returning back to workplaces. And it would not bode well for hopes of getting a long-lasting vaccine. 
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The World Health Organization warns that the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening gains made in eliminating Hepatitis B and C, which cause liver damage and liver cancer.  In observance of World Hepatitis Day Tuesday, the WHO is calling for action to stop transmission of viral hepatitis from mother-to-child. Around 325 million people globally live with hepatitis B or C and an estimated one-point-three million people die of this viral disease each year.  The World Health Organization reports the proportion of children under age five chronically infected with hepatitis B has dropped from five percent to under one percent since the 1980s.  This, thanks to the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus considers this a big achievement.  He says progress toward the elimination of the disease is being made in Asia where childhood hepatitis B immunization coverage is high.“However, progress is being hampered by low coverage of hepatitis B vaccine in some regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where many children still miss out on the all-important vaccine dose at birth,” Tedros said. “One of the most significant challenges we face in eliminating hepatitis B is mother-to-children transmission.” 
 FILE – Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.Tedros says inoculating children at birth is the most important strategy for controlling the disease and saving lives.   He says children who are immunized against the virus will protect future generations from becoming sick and dying from liver damage and liver cancer.To mark World Hepatitis Day, the WHO is issuing new guidelines for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B.  Tedros sees the implementation of the new guidelines as an important stepping-stone on the road to hepatitis elimination.  But, he warns, that road has been made harder by COVID-19.“Services for prevention, testing and treatment have been disrupted, supply chains are being interrupted, limited financial and human resources are being diverted and the political focus has shifted to containing the pandemic and economic recovery,” Tedros said. “All of which means there is a real risk we could lose the gains we have made.” The WHO warns high levels of disruptions of both the birth dose and childhood hepatitis B immunization would likely result in five-point-three million additional chronic infections among children born in the next decade, leading to a million related deaths.  Health officials are urging governments to act now to ensure young children receive this life-saving vaccine to prevent new long-lasting hepatitis B infections.
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Healthcare workers in Cameroon are marking World Hepatitis Day (July 28), to raise awareness of the virus, which causes inflammation of the liver and kills about 300 people per day in Sub-Saharan Africa.  While global coverage of a birth dose vaccine for Hepatitis B is 43%, according to the World Health Organization, only 6% receive it in the WHO’s African Region, which does not include Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, or Sudan.  In Cameroon, health officials have begun dispatching healthcare workers to find hep B patients who are avoiding treatment and getting the vaccine for their newborns.Farmer Valerie Mbappe, 52, said she was diagnosed with hepatitis in April.But she was reluctant to go to a doctor because her uncle told her she should be treated by a traditional healer.After going to the healer, Mbappe’s abdominal pain, fatigue and fever have gotten worse.She said now that she knows that she can be treated at the hospital, her advice is that people should not be reluctant to visit health facilities for their hepatitis screening.  She said she was told by the nurse that she should stop drinking and smoking heavily because it may lead to complications during her treatment.Mbappe was brought to the General Hospital in Yaoundé by members of SOS Hepatitis, a charity group that helps patients seek treatment.Spokesman for the group Samuel Yamissi said the efforts are part of this year’s World Hepatitis Day activities, marked annually on July 28.He said their main target is the majority of patients who refuse to go to hospitals and prefer traditional treatments.Everyone who tests positive for hepatitis can get help from his group and the government, said Yamissi.  He said those who test negative will be given their first dose of the hepatitis vaccine. People who take the first dose of the vaccine should come for the second dose after three months and the last dose after six months, said Yamissi, to be free of the disease.In 2019 Cameroon reported 12,000 new cases of hepatitis B, up from 9,600 in 2018.But Cameroon’s Ministry of Health says 13 percent of people are living with hepatitis B in the country of 25 million.Despite the high rate of infection, the ministry says less than 1,500 Cameroonians are receiving treatment.The Ministry of Health’s Dr. Simon Eyong treats hepatitis B patients.He said to encourage patients to go to hospitals, the government reduced the cost of treatment from $250 per month to less than $50.”Since it is a slow killer disease, which symptoms only appear when it has already reached its climax, get tested, get vaccinated.  Keep away from unprescribed medications like anti-inflammatories like Paracetamol,” said Eyong.Cameroon’s 360 government hospitals this year for the first-time dispatched health workers to track patients and ensure they get their treatments and vaccines.The health ministry’s Dr. Abdoulaye Sajo said the government also targets birth dose hepatitis vaccines for newborns.He spoke via telephone from the northern town of Garoua.Sajo said the government has given firm instructions that all newly born babies, all mothers, and all pregnant women should be screened and vaccinated against hepatitis B. He said the government has also given instructions that everyone tested positive should be treated immediately.  The only challenge they have, said Sajo, is meeting the so many mothers who never visit hospitals and prefer to deliver at home.Only 35 percent of Cameroon’s 25 million people visit hospitals.Others rely on traditional healers and only go to hospitals when their health becomes critical. 
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Widescale testing began Monday in the United States on two potential COVID-19 vaccines to determine their safety and effectiveness.   A volunteer in Savannah, Georgia early Monday morning received the first dose of an experimental vaccine manufactured by U.S.-based biotech firm Moderna and developed by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  The volunteer is the first of 30,000 healthy people around the country who will receive two doses of the vaccine over the next several weeks in a late-stage phase of the study to see whether people get infected or sick from COVID-19.   An earlier phase of the study discovered that while none of the volunteers experienced a serious side effect from the new vaccine, more than half reported mild or moderate reactions such as fatigue, headaches, chills, muscle aches and pain at the injection site.    Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters Monday that the first results of the late-stage trial of the vaccine may be known by as early as November.  If the trial is successful, Moderna will produce 500 million doses a year, with the hopes of making 1 billion doses annually beginning in 2021.   Development of the Moderna/NIAI vaccine is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, which is aimed at delivering 300 million doses of an approved vaccine by January.  Moderna has received nearly $1 billion in funding from the program, including $472 million committed just on Sunday to support the late-stage testing phase.Nurse Kathe Olmstead prepares a shot as the world’s biggest study of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., gets underway, July 27, 2020, in Binghamton, N.Y.The second experimental vaccine, made by U.S.-based Pfizer in collaboration with Germany-based BioNTech SE, will also be given to 30,000 people across the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Germany.  Pfizer, which is conducting its research independent of Operation Warp Speed, has received a $1.95 billion commitment to produce 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine if it proves to be safe and effective. Researchers on both projects are relying on a new process called messenger RNA to improve the efficacy of their respective vaccines.  Messenger RNA, or mRNA for short, tricks the body into producing a similar protein found in COVID-19, which the immune system sees as foreign and learns to recognize. The immune system would then be prepared to protect the body if the person is exposed to the real virus.   Utilizing Messenger RNA has yet to result in the production of any new vaccines, but it has the potential, more than current methods, to quicken the process.   “Having a safe and effective vaccine distributed by the end of 2020 is a stretch goal, but it’s the right goal for the American people,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters Monday.  Dr. Collins said the government is seeking volunteers from groups who have been the most affected by COVID-19, including African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and the elderly.   He also insisted that safety is not being compromised despite the fast pace of development.   The two potential COVID-19 vaccines are among the nearly 150 being developed around the world that are in various stages of testing.  Three more new vaccines   developed, respectively, by U.S.-based biotech firm Novavax, pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson, and a joint collaboration between Britain’s University of Oxford and U.S.-based AstraZeneca will soon enter late-stage testing also involving 30,000 participants.  All three companies are taking part in the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed. More than 16.4 million infections have been reported around the world, including over 654,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.     The United States leads the world in the number of confirmed cases with more than 4.2 million, including 148,011 deaths. 
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Widescale testing began Monday in the United States on two potential COVID-19 vaccines to determine their safety and effectiveness.   A volunteer in Savannah, Georgia early Monday morning received the first dose of an experimental vaccine manufactured by U.S.-based biotech firm Moderna and developed by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  The volunteer is the first of 30,000 healthy people around the country who will receive two doses of the vaccine over the next several weeks in a late-stage phase of the study to see whether people get infected or sick from COVID-19.   An earlier phase of the study discovered that while none of the volunteers experienced a serious side effect from the new vaccine, more than half reported mild or moderate reactions such as fatigue, headaches, chills, muscle aches and pain at the injection site.    Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters Monday that the first results of the late-stage trial of the vaccine may be known by as early as November.  If the trial is successful, Moderna will produce 500 million doses a year, with the hopes of making 1 billion doses annually beginning in 2021.   Development of the Moderna/NIAI vaccine is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, which is aimed at delivering 300 million doses of an approved vaccine by January.  Moderna has received nearly $1 billion in funding from the program, including $472 million committed just on Sunday to support the late-stage testing phase.Nurse Kathe Olmstead prepares a shot as the world’s biggest study of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., gets underway, July 27, 2020, in Binghamton, N.Y.The second experimental vaccine, made by U.S.-based Pfizer in collaboration with Germany-based BioNTech SE, will also be given to 30,000 people across the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Germany.  Pfizer, which is conducting its research independent of Operation Warp Speed, has received a $1.95 billion commitment to produce 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine if it proves to be safe and effective. Researchers on both projects are relying on a new process called messenger RNA to improve the efficacy of their respective vaccines.  Messenger RNA, or mRNA for short, tricks the body into producing a similar protein found in COVID-19, which the immune system sees as foreign and learns to recognize. The immune system would then be prepared to protect the body if the person is exposed to the real virus.   Utilizing Messenger RNA has yet to result in the production of any new vaccines, but it has the potential, more than current methods, to quicken the process.   “Having a safe and effective vaccine distributed by the end of 2020 is a stretch goal, but it’s the right goal for the American people,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters Monday.  Dr. Collins said the government is seeking volunteers from groups who have been the most affected by COVID-19, including African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and the elderly.   He also insisted that safety is not being compromised despite the fast pace of development.   The two potential COVID-19 vaccines are among the nearly 150 being developed around the world that are in various stages of testing.  Three more new vaccines   developed, respectively, by U.S.-based biotech firm Novavax, pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson, and a joint collaboration between Britain’s University of Oxford and U.S.-based AstraZeneca will soon enter late-stage testing also involving 30,000 participants.  All three companies are taking part in the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed. More than 16.4 million infections have been reported around the world, including over 654,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.     The United States leads the world in the number of confirmed cases with more than 4.2 million, including 148,011 deaths. 
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Much of Hawaii was spared when Hurricane Douglas passed just north of Oahu, Maui and the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, early Monday. The Category 1 storm was on what forecasters had called a “dangerously close” path, but the islands managed to “dodge the bullet” as one police chief put it, when the storm veered slightly away from its forecast path. No severe damage has been reported from Douglas’ heavy rain and fierce winds. But the threat to Hawaii is not totally over. Hurricane warnings are out for some parts of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument – a World Heritage site described as “cluster of small, low lying islands and atolls” – northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Tropical storm warnings and watches have been issued for other parts of Papahānaumokuākea, which is the largest contiguous fully protected conservation area in the U.S., and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, encompassing 1,508,870 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. As of Monday afternoon, Hawaiian time, Douglas was still a dangerous storm with top sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour but is forecast to weaken Tuesday into Wednesday.  
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For the second time, U.S. President Donald Trump has been photographed wearing a mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.  Trump wore the face covering as he toured a North Carolina laboratory where key components are being manufactured for a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Novavax. “I trust all Americans to do the right thing, but we strongly advise everyone to especially, especially focus on maintaining a social distance, maintain a rigorous hygiene, avoid crowded gatherings and indoor bars and wear masks when appropriate,” Trump told a group of reporters traveling with him just before his tour of the Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies Innovation Center. “Nothing’s happened like this since the end of World War II,” the president said of the billions of dollars being spent in the global race to produce and mass deploy a vaccine in record time.  Before the tour of the plant, Trump spoke to several dozen North Carolina politicians, scientists, White House officials, journalists and Secret Service agents, Trump was the only person not wearing a mask.  The president who has faced criticism for what is perceived as a belated and inadequate response by the federal government to the coronavirus pandemic, said the U.S. states “largely had what they needed” but that all of them “are not out of the woods.”  Trump defended his administration’s response to the pandemic, despite the U.S. reporting the largest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world.  “We report our cases. Most of the world doesn’t,” Trump said.  The United States has conducted more than 52 million tests, the president said, adding, “nobody’s even close.”  President Donald Trump wears a face mask as he participates in a tour of Bioprocess Innovation Center at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, July 27, 2020, in Morrisville, North Carolina.Trump said U.S. officials are monitoring caseloads in Latin America, a region of particular concern.  “You have some very, very highly infected countries outside of our borders,” he said.  The mortality rate for U.S. COVID-19 patients older than 18 is 85% lower than it was in April, according to the president, giving credit to better therapies and improved knowledge about the coronavirus.  In the past week, the disease killed more than 1,000 Americans a day for five straight days, according to the Vice President Mike Pence, center, gestures as he speaks during a news conference with FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, left, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, right, at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, July 27, 2020.While Trump was in North Carolina, Vice President Mike Pence was in Miami, where clinical trials of another vaccine jointly developed by The National Institutes of Health and the Moderna Inc. began Monday.   “It’s a historic day, a day when we begin in earnest to work on a vaccine,” Pence said.  Some health experts say it sometimes can take years for a safe, effective vaccine against a disease to be successfully developed.  Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. Stephen Hahn was with Pence in Miami and told reporters the FDA “will not cut corners” to evaluate a vaccine.    Several other countries are also working on developing a COVID-19 vaccine.  
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