Tag: 2021

David Wohl, MD, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, talked with ABC-11 about COVID-19 models and when cases might peak. He also answered questions about vaccines for kids and booster shots for adults. Watch the news story.

An article in Infection Disease Special Edition reviews recent studies about COVID-19 transmission, including one led by Jessica Lin, MD, that showed COVID-19 spreads quickly through a household. The observational study, conducted between April and October 2020, followed 100 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 around the Raleigh, N.C., area and included a...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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,...

Heart failure is a common cause of hospitalization and re-hospitalization, particularly in individuals over the age of 65. And approximately half the people who are hospitalized with heart failure (HF) have reduced ejection fraction (HRrEF). A normal ejection fraction is more than 55%, while heart failure with reduced ejection fraction...

Division of Infectious Diseases UNC HIV Cure Center led by David Margolis, MD, was awarded $26.2 million over the next five years. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Silvia Kreda, PhD, received a phase two NIH Small Business Innovation Research Grant to continue studies for a novel oligonucleotide therapeutic strategy for treating cystic fibrosis....

Nash UNC Health in Rocky Mount, NC, has received the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline® NSTEMI Gold Quality Achievement Award and STEMI Gold Receiving Center Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures for the treatment of patients who suffer heart attacks. Each year more than 250,000 people experience STEMI, the deadliest...