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Category: Infectious Diseases

  • david-wohl

    Cooper Promises Expanded Access to COVID Antibody Treatment

    On the same day North Carolina hospitals reported a record number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units across the state, Gov. Roy Cooper signaled he will take action expanding access to a potentially lifesaving treatment designed to keep people out of the hospital in the first place. “We’ve been beating the drum for months now, since November of last year, that we do have … Continued

  • David Weber, MD, MPH

    How Safe Are Outdoor Events? Is a Lockdown Coming?

    Eighteen months into the pandemic and there are still a lot of questions out there about everything related to COVID-19. CBS 17 took those questions to health experts to get answers using facts not fear. David Weber, MD, MPH, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, contributed to the question and answer segment. Read or watch the report.  

  • QA-David-Wohl

    Experimental Monoclonal Antibody Combo Shows Significant Efficacy Against COVID-19

    As part of the NIH-sponsored ACTIV-2 clinical trial for COVID-19 outpatients, preliminary data revealed that a new combination monoclonal antibody treatment reduced hospitalizations and death by 78 percent in high-risk patients. ACTIV-2 vice chair David Wohl, MD, leads monoclonal treatment for UNC Health. Read more from the UNC Health and UNC School of Medicine Newsroom.

  • hobbs-duncan

    Hobbs and Duncan Win $3.9M NIAID Grant to Study a Meningitis Vaccine’s Effect on Gonorrhea

    The NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded Marcia Hobbs, PhD, and Alex Duncan, MD, PhD, a five-year, $3.9 million grant to study how a vaccine recently developed to prevent life-threatening infections caused by group B Neisseria meningitidis, the MenB vaccine, may also protect people from infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a sexually transmitte … Continued

  • Jessica Lin, MD, MSCR

    Transmission Rate of COVID-19 Within Households Can Be Over 30%, More than 50% from Minority Communities

    With potent virulence and transmissibility, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is one of the deadliest pathogens to be encountered in recorded history. Scientists have reiterated that other than hygienic measures, distance between individuals is the best defense against its spread. However, the latter is difficult within a household and presents challenges in the event of a member contracting … Continued

  • emily-sickbert-bennett

    Mask Guidance Evolves Indoors and Outdoors as Delta Variant Keeps Spreading

    Precautions are changing as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads. Now, experts say even in outdoor settings, a mask is still strongly encouraged in many instances. The Director of Infection Prevention at UNC Medical Center, Emily Sickbert-Bennett, PhD, MS, understands the frustration. She says we now know much more about COVID-19, which is why guidance keeps evolving. Sick … Continued

  • david-wohl

    NC Now Using More COVID-19 Treatment in 1 Week Than Previously in 1 Month

    Monoclonal antibodies are infusion-based therapies used to treat COVID-19 infections. They are being used under Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA. “We designed antibodies that we can infuse into someone’s blood, and instantaneously there are now antibodies,” said David Wohl, MD, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, explaining to CBS17 what the treatm … Continued

  • Jessica Lin, MD, MSCR

    Novel CRISPR-Based Malaria Diagnostic Capable of Plasmodium Detection, Species Differentiation, and Drug-Resistance Genotyping

    CRISPR-based diagnostics are a new class of highly sensitive and specific assays with multiple applications in infectious disease diagnosis. SHERLOCK, or Specific High-Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing, is one such CRISPR-based diagnostic that combines recombinase polymerase pre-amplification, CRISPR-RNA base-pairing, and LwCas13a activity for nucleic acid detection. Resea … Continued

  • About five percent of people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have hepatitis B virus says Jonathan Parr, MD, MPH.

    Parr Interviewed By The Scientist About the Development of CRISPR Diagnostics

    Jonathan Parr, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases, was interviewed for an article in The Scientist about the development of CRISPR diagnostics. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have been striving to develop low-cost tests to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in patient samples. Now, a team of researchers based at Harvard Unive … Continued

  • Jessica Lin, MD, MSCR

    Insight Into How Often COVID-19 Spreads Through Households

    Jessica Lin, PhD, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases, discussed a new study published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal that demonstrates how quickly COVID-19 can spread through a household, and provides insight into how and why communities of color have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic. Read the article.