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Rituximab therapy has been found to be tied to more severe COVID-19 among patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases in a study published in The Lancet Rheumatology.
From April 15 till November 20, 2020, investigators looked at data from 1,090 patients who had inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases and suspected or confirmed COVID-19 from the French RMD COVID-19 cohort. Sixty three of these patients were treated with rituximab, particularly for rheumatoid arthritis (49%), antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (17%) and systemic sclerosis (11%). Of the 1,027 patients who were not given rituximab, a subgroup of 495 patients had diseases for which rituximab is a known treatment option.
Use of vedolizumab and corticosteroid among patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been shown to be associated with an elevated risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, in a new study published in Gut. Corticosteroid use was also associated with an increased risk of severe COVID-19.
NYT: The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are proving to be highly effective for the prevention of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections under real-world settings. There has been a discussion whether vaccinated people can get asymptomatic infections and transmit the virus and the findings suggest that transmission may be highly unlikely. Virus variants were in circulation when the study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was conducted, but the vaccines still provided robust protection. Details: In line with the clinical trial data, a two-dose regimen prevented 90% of infections by two weeks following the second dose. Following one dose, 80% of infections were prevented by two weeks.
Author :Dr KK Aggarwal , President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA
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