Since the emergence of West Nile virus (WNV) in North America in 1999, there have been several reports of WNV activity in Central and South American countries. To detect WNV in Brazil, we performed a serological survey of horses from different regions of Brazil using recombinant peptides from domain III of WNV. Positive samples were validated with the neutralisation test. Our results showed that of 79 ELISA-positive horses, nine expressed WNV-specific neutralising antibodies. Eight of the infected horses were from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul and one was from the state of Paraíba. Our results provide additional evidence for the emergence of WNV in Brazil and for its circulation in multiple regions of the country.
Since the emergence of West Nile virus (WNV) in North America in 1999, there have been several reports of WNV activity in Central and South American countries. To detect WNV in Brazil, we performed a serological survey of horses from different regions of Brazil using recombinant peptides from domain III of WNV. Positive samples were validated with the neutralisation test. Our results showed that of 79 ELISA-positive horses, nine expressed WNV-specific neutralising antibodies. Eight of the infected horses were from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul and one was from the state of Paraíba. Our results provide additional evidence for the emergence of WNV in Brazil and for its circulation in multiple regions of the country.
BACKGROUNDIn March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Solidarity Program, probably the largest global initiative to encourage and support research in four promising drugs, named Remdesivir, Hydroxychloroquine, β Interferon and the combination Lopinavir / Ritonavir, to reduce the mortality of Coronavirus disease 2019 .OBJECTIVES Considering the potential impact of Solidarity Program to restrain the current pandemic, the present study aims to investigate whether it was designed upon indicators of scientific productivity, defined as the level of the production of new scientific knowledge and of the institutional capabilities, estimated in terms of scientific publications and technological agreements.
METHODSThe scientific documents on Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Gammacoronavirus and Coronavirus were retrieved from Scopus database while the technological agreements on coronavirus were obtained through Cortellis. As for the institutions and countries, we have considered the data on author's affiliations in both set of data. For comparison, we included the analysis of documents related with other drugs or therapies, such as vaccines and antibodies, which were listed in a Clarivate's report on coronaviruses research.FINDINGS Most of the analysis refers to documents on Coronavirus, the largest group. The number of documents related to WHO's drugs are almost five times higher than in the other groups. This subset of documents involves the largest and most diverse number of institutions and countries. As for agreements, we observed a smaller number of institutions involved in it, suggesting differences between countries in terms of technical and human capabilities to develop basic and/or clinical research on coronavirus and to develop new forms or products to treat or to prevent the disease.MAIN CONCLUSIONS Hence, the results shown in this study illustrate that decisions taken by an international scientific body, as WHO, were mainly based in scientific knowledge and institutional competencies.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Solidarity Program probably the largest global initiative to encourage and support research in four promising drugs and therapies (Remdesivir, Hydroxychloroquine, β interferon and the combination Lopinavir / Ritonavir) to reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Considering the potential impact of this project to restrain the current pandemic, the present study aims to investigate whether it was designed upon a scientific basis. For this proposal, we collected all documents on coronavirus indexed in Scopus database by using a search strategy based in MESH terms. Among the studied groups of documents, we looked in more detail the Coronavirus group in order to find documents related to WHO’ s drugs or to other drugs and therapies extracted from another source. The main findings indicate that the number of documents related to WHO’s drugs are higher than in the other groups and this subset of documents involves a larger number of institutions and countries. Hence, the results shown in this study illustrate that decisions by an international body, as WHO, may be science-based and not be merely bureaucratic decisions.
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