Fernando Bellissimo-Rodrigues

Background: Most studies evaluating COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and effectiveness were conducted over short follow-up periods due to the urgency of vaccine approval and rollout during the pandemic. This study aimed to assess the long-term effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines among healthcare workers at a tertiary hospital. Methods: We conducted an open retrospective cohort study at Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto, including healthcare workers employed between July 3, 2020, and February 8, 2022. A total of 7,385 workers were followed for 3,185,239 person-days. Three monovalent vaccines were administered during the study period: Coronavac™ (Sinovac), Covishield™ (AstraZeneca), and Comirnaty™ (Pfizer-BioNTech). Participants were categorized as unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, or fully vaccinated. The unadjusted relative risk (RR) of COVID-19 was calculated for vaccinated groups compared with the unvaccinated group. Results: For COVID-19 of any severity, the RR was 0.72 (95%CI: 0.59-0.89) among partially vaccinated and 1.30 (95%CI: 1.19-1.44) among fully vaccinated workers. For severe or critical cases, the RR was 0.75 (95%CI: 0.26-2.16) with partial vaccination and 0.14 (95%CI: 0.05-0.41) with full vaccination. For COVID-19-related deaths, the RR with full vaccination was 0.32 (95%CI: 0.03-3.09). Conclusions: The vaccines provided limited long-term protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection and mild COVID-19. However, protection against severe disease and death remained substantial despite the circulation of multiple variants.

The objective of this study was to analyze the association between temperature and humidity, in relation to deaths from cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases in the municipality of Ribeirão Preto, SP, in 2019, projecting future scenarios of these variables. An ecological study was carried out in which deaths were classified according to Chapters IX and X of the International Classification of Diseases-10, according to death certificates and temperature and humidity data. Chapter IX represented 23% and Chapter X 24.9% of the deaths, with 53% being male, 84% over 80 years old, and 83.2% white. The highest coefficient was in the Center (5.8/1000 inhabitants), and June had the highest number of deaths (242). Temperatures ranged from 3.9ºC to 39ºC and humidity from 37% to 96.5%. Low temperatures and humidity were associated with an increase in mortality, with an increase in these variables reducing deaths by 3.1% weekly. Ribeirão Preto has a hot and dry climatological profile, with deaths mainly due to respiratory diseases.

Purpose: To describe the ophthalmological findings of dry eye disease and its relation to the quality of life of COVID-19 survivors. Methods: COVID-19 survivors who had previously been hospitalized at Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto complex underwent an ophthalmological evaluation, which included a dry eye disease questionnaire, break-up time, fluorescein staining, and Schirmer test. We collected the presenting and best-corrected visual acuity, sociodemographic data, personal medical history, and scores from a self-reported quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-bref). According to the severity of the acute phase of the disease, the patients were classified into mild-to-moderate, severe, and critical groups. Results: Ninety-five patients (190 eyes) were evaluated 100 ± 44 days after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. Of these, 83 patients (87.3%) completed the WHOQOL-bref questionnaire. Ten patients (12.0%) had mild-to-moderate COVID-19, 41 (49.4%) had severe COVID-19, and 32 (38.6%) had critical COVID-19. The median best-corrected visual acuity was logMAR 0 (0-1). Approximately 26.3% patients had a history of dry eye disease or severe dry eye symptoms (frequent or constant ocular dryness and irritation). There was an association between the proportion of patients with dry eye disease and the quality of life (p=0.014) and health (p=0.001). Furthermore, there was a significant trend between the proportion of patients with dry eye disease and how they rated their health and quality of life (p=0.0004 and 0.0027, respectively. Conclusions: There is a significant negative correlation between the proportion of patients with dry eye disease and their self-reported quality of life.

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, presents diverse symptoms, including neurological manifestations. This study investigated COVID-19's neurological sequelae, focusing on the central nervous system's involvement through cerebral glycolytic metabolism assessed via PET/CT. Twenty-two patients with mild long COVID cognitive symptoms and 20 healthy volunteers without cognitive, psychiatric, or neurological impairments and no history of COVID-19 infection underwent cerebral PET/CT scans using [18F]FDG to assess cerebral metabolism. The study meticulously evaluated the uptake of [18F]FDG in various brain regions, employing the CortexID Suite software for quantitative analysis. The analysis focused on identifying areas of hypometabolism and hypermetabolism, indicative of altered glucose metabolism possibly related to COVID-19's neurological impact. No statistically significant differences were found between the mild COVID and healthy groups. Although our sample was too small to generate a statistical difference between groups, future studies should explore some findings, such as hypometabolism in 15 regions and hypermetabolism in 11 regions in the mild COVID group. These changes, especially in areas linked to executive functions, sensory perception, and emotional regulation, suggest nuanced alterations in brain function. Our study did not find significant glycolytic metabolic changes in patients with mild long COVID. However, areas of glycolytic hypometabolism and hypermetabolism found in some patients showed biological plausibility with the cognitive and affective symptoms they presented. Future investigations with a larger sample size should be correlated with neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric examinations to confirm this relationship.

This work aimed to study the role of different SARS-CoV-2 lineages in the epidemiology of multiple waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo state), with comparison within Brazil and globally. Viral genomic sequencing was combined with clinical and sociodemographic information of 2,379 subjects at a large Brazilian hospital. On the whole 2,395 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes were obtained from April 2020 to January 2022. We report variants of concern (VOC) and interest (VOI) dynamics and the role of Brazilian lineages. We identified three World Health Organization VOCs (Gamma, Delta, Omicron) and one VOI (Zeta), which caused distinct waves in this cohort. We also identified 47 distinct Pango lineages. Consistent with the high prevalence of Gamma in Brazil, Pango lineage P.1 dominated infections in this cohort for half of 2021. Each wave of infection largely consisted of a single variant group, with each new group quickly and completely rising to dominance. Despite increasing vaccination in Brazil starting in 2021, this pattern was observed throughout the study and is consistent with the hypothesis that herd immunity tends to be SARS-CoV-2 variant-specific and does not broadly protect against COVID-19.

Cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) requiring hospitalization continue to appear in vulnerable populations, highlighting the importance of novel treatments. The hyperinflammatory response underlies the severity of the disease, and targeting this pathway may be useful. Herein, we tested whether immunomodulation focusing on interleukin (IL)-6, IL-17, and IL-2, could improve the clinical outcomes of patients admitted with COVID-19. This multicenter, open-label, prospective, randomized controlled trial was conducted in Brazil. Sixty hospitalized patients with moderate-to-critical COVID-19 received in addition to standard of care (SOC): IL-17 inhibitor (ixekizumab 80 mg SC/week) 1 dose every 4 weeks; low-dose IL-2 (1.5 million IU per day) for 7 days or until discharge; or indirect IL-6 inhibitor (colchicine) orally (0.5 mg) every 8 hours for 3 days, followed by 4 weeks at 0.5 mg 2x/day; or SOC alone. The primary outcome was accessed in the “per protocol” population as the proportion of patients with clinical improvement, defined as a decrease greater or equal to two points on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) seven-category ordinal scale by day 28. All treatments were safe, and the efficacy outcomes did not differ significantly from those of SOC. Interestingly, in the colchicine group, all participants had an improvement of greater or equal to two points on the WHO seven-category ordinal scale and no deaths or patient deterioration were observed. Ixekizumab, colchicine, and IL-2 were demonstrated to be safe but ineffective for COVID-19 treatment. These results must be interpreted cautiously because of the limited sample size.