UTMB News

There are limits to how much we can infer about human disease from experiments on tissue cultures and lab animals, said Dr. Vineet Menachery, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Specific mutations in omicron’s spike protein, the structure the virus uses to attach to and enter cells, may help explain why the variant spreads so easily. “If it’s better at infecting cells, then the expectation is that it’s better at transmission," Menachery said.

Dr. Shawn Nishi, a professor and program director of University of Texas Medical Branch’s pulmonary critical care unit, said all COVID-positive people in the hospital aren’t there because of COVID. About half were incidental diagnosis in people hospitalized for things other than COVID. While hospitalizations from COVID-19 are not as high as during previous surges, more hospital workers are getting sick from the highly contagious strain, Nishi said. “Our division had not really gotten sick until this variant hit,” she said. “It’s just super contagious. We’ve been so careful. But despite our best efforts, we’ve had people in our division going down.”

While the current COVID backslide has caused “PTSD” to enter many parents’ vernacular, technically speaking, that may not be what you’re experiencing. Dr. Jeff R. Temple, psychologist and professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, adds that how “close” you are or were to the trauma may also impact your symptoms and the severity of them. “Someone who lost a loved one or they or their child was severely ill will likely be more anxious during this new wave of COVID, compared to someone who did not know anyone with COVID,” he said.

“Medical marijuana isn’t legal in Texas, and although my patients request it, we can only discuss pros and cons,” wrote Dr. Victor S. Sierpina, the WD and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine and Professor of Family Medicine at UTMB. “Patients choosing medical cannabis treatment must seek it in one of our neighboring states like Oklahoma or Colorado where it’s available and legal, but interstate transportation is illegal by federal rules.”

Although no one knows the exact numbers, it’s estimated that between half a million and a million Allied soldiers in World War I suffered from Trench Fever. Today, Trench Fever cases are rare, but they’re making a bit of a comeback among the growing populations of homeless. Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel, professors at the University of Texas Medical Branch, explain the condition in the latest Medical Discovery News column.

Even if omicron is milder, “it seems to be still doing quite a bit of damage in unvaccinated people,” said University of Texas Medical Branch virologist Vineet Menachery. “The good news is that there does seem to be a trend that this virus is less severe than previous waves, especially if you're vaccinated.” For those who got their shots, "the threat of severe disease is probably off the table for most people,” he said. “On the other hand, for people who are not vaccinated, I think the threat is just as big as it was in March of 2020.” International news outlets ran the Voice of America story, including the Zimbabwe Star. Several U.S. outlets also ran this story.

Getting infected with flu and COVID at the same time is rare, but it is starting to happen. “The symptoms are similar,” said Dr. Janak Patel, director of the Department of Infection Control & Healthcare Epidemiology at UTMB. The medical branch is seeing a 30 to 40% positivity rate for COVID. However, the flu is only around 4%. Still, within the last week, UTMB has seen three cases of “flurona,” including one in a child. Patel said all patients are doing well, provided they got a quick and accurate diagnosis. “I don't think we should be scared,” he said. “We know how to take care of both of these illnesses.” In other reports, Fox News and Salon referenced Dr. Patel’s comments from the ABC affiliate report.

It means you have COVID, said Dr. Megan Berman, an associate professor of internal medicine at The University of Texas Medical Branch. False negatives can occur for a variety of reasons, such as being tested too soon after exposure. The virus may simply not be detectable yet in the body, or the sample may not be sufficient, she said.

Your baby will come when she is good and ready, not because of anything you do at home to jumpstart the delivery process, said Dr. Shannon Clark, a professor of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Clark debunked seven common myths. “Most of the old wives’ tales about things you can do to start labor won't hurt, but they won't help either,” she said.

In the latest Vaccine Smarts column, Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp share a cautionary tale of a rare, but avoidable, injury caused by a vaccine. “People should make sure that prior to receiving vaccines, the administering health professional is fully informed of their health conditions and medications,” the column stated.

In the latest Medical Discovery News Column, Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel deliver good news. Researchers in Spain and at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have shown that the consumption of chocolate in the morning or evening leads to a number of changes in the body that can impact burning fat and reducing glucose levels in postmenopausal women.

China put up barriers to studying the origins of COVID-19, leading to a conflict that means less scientific collaboration and more mistrust among global powers that must work together to head off the next disaster. Dr. James Le Duc, retired director of the Galveston National Laboratory, a top U.S. biocontainment facility, urged the director of the Wuhan lab in an email at the beginning of the pandemic to investigate whether the new virus could have resulted from a lab accident. Now, Le Duc doesn’t communicate with colleagues in China on work matters, he said. “Science is shared,” he said. “When you interfere with those collaborations it hurts everybody and is just very sad.”

Hospitals in Houston could run out of the antibody treatment sotrovimab within the next two weeks. The University of Texas Medical Branch told Fox News on Saturday that its four-hospital network is using sotrovimab with the patients who need it most and are waiting on the next shipment. UTMB chief medical officer Dr. Gulshan Sharma told Fox News that the hospital system had allocation prior to Christmas and that it is looking for the next allocation date early 2022. "Based on our current usage it could last for [the] next 10-14 days," Sharma said.

Dr. Gregory Gray, a professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch, said that as at-home testing becomes increasingly popular, clinical- and hospital-gathered data about COVID-19 will become increasingly inaccurate as a measurement of the disease in the overall population. He suggested officials may have to move to conducting cohort studies where infection rates are determined through antibody testing of groups over time.

Faced with increased demand and dwindling supplies, the University of Texas Medical Branch is rationing an antibody treatment shown to be effective against COVID-19, restricting the medicine to the sickest and most at-risk people, including some who are unvaccinated. People eligible for the antibody treatment include those not expected to mount an adequate immune response and some unvaccinated people, including anyone 65 years of age or older, said Dr. Gulshan Sharma, the medical branch’s chief medical officer.

The University of Texas Medical Branch’s four-hospital network will likely run through its remaining 600 doses of sotrovimab in 10 days, said Dr. Gulshan Sharma, the system’s chief medical officer. “We’re just hoping and waiting to see what we get,” he said. “It’s anybody’s guess what would be the allocation.”