Publications by authors named "Ruth Studley"
Article Synopsis
- - The study highlights the need for accurate estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibody levels across different regions and demographics to inform effective public health policies.
- - Using advanced statistical models on UK COVID-19 data, the research reveals that not considering vaccination status leads to underestimating PCR positivity and significantly overestimating antibody levels, especially in low-vaccine groups.
- - The findings emphasize the importance of accounting for vaccination and other key factors in future infectious disease surveys to ensure representative and reliable data.
Detecting and quantifying changes in the growth rates of infectious diseases is vital to informing public health strategy and can inform policymakers' rationale for implementing or continuing interventions aimed at reducing their impact. Substantial changes in SARS-CoV-2 prevalence with the emergence of variants have provided an opportunity to investigate different methods for doing this. We collected polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results from all participants in the United Kingdom's COVID-19 Infection Survey between August 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: We evaluated Nanopore sequencing for influenza surveillance.
Methods: Influenza A and B PCR-positive samples from hospital patients in Oxfordshire, UK, and a UK-wide population survey from winter 2022-23 underwent Nanopore sequencing following targeted rt-PCR amplification.
Results: From 941 infections, successful sequencing was achieved in 292/388 (75 %) available Oxfordshire samples: 231 (79 %) A/H3N2, 53 (18 %) A/H1N1, and 8 (3 %) B/Victoria and in 53/113 (47 %) UK-wide samples.
Article Synopsis
- Syndromic surveillance traditionally depends on healthcare-seeking patients, but this study suggests that involving community cohorts can yield valuable insights, especially given the presence of multiple respiratory viruses during the 2022/23 winter season in the UK.
- The research analyzed data from nearly 33,000 tests, revealing SARS-CoV-2, RSV, and influenza A/B positivity rates, with peaks of these viruses occurring at different times and varying by age group, highlighting that younger individuals were most affected by RSV and older individuals by SARS-CoV-2.
- Findings indicated that many individuals who tested positive reported few symptoms, complicating the ability to distinguish between the viruses solely based on symptoms, and
Article Synopsis
- * Those with persistent infections were found to have over 50% higher odds of experiencing long COVID symptoms compared to those without persistent infections.
- * The research reveals viral mutations associated with these persistent infections, suggesting ongoing viral evolution and potential impacts on treatment and vaccine effectiveness.
Article Synopsis
- After the emergence of Omicron variants, reinfections of SARS-CoV-2 saw a significant rise, prompting a study of around 45,000 reinfections from the UK's COVID-19 Infection Survey.
- The study found that reinfections typically featured lower viral loads and fewer self-reported symptoms compared to initial infections.
- It was revealed that protection against reinfection was stronger in individuals with more recent infections, and vaccination within the last 180 days reduced reinfection risk, particularly among those aged 30-45.
The Office for National Statistics Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey (ONS-CIS) is the largest surveillance study of SARS-CoV-2 positivity in the community, and collected data on the United Kingdom (UK) epidemic from April 2020 until March 2023 before being paused. Here, we report on the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 determined by analysing the sequenced samples collected by the ONS-CIS during this period. We observed a series of sweeps or partial sweeps, with each sweeping lineage having a distinct growth advantage compared to their predecessors, although this was also accompanied by a gradual fall in average viral burdens from June 2021 to March 2023.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Vaccination against COVID-19 has clear physiological benefits, but its impact on behavior is less understood, particularly regarding risk compensation, where people take on more risk due to feeling safer.
- The study found that while personal vaccination didn't significantly change individual behaviors, people were more likely to engage in riskier activities as overall vaccination rates in the population increased.
- This trend of risk compensation was consistent across the four nations of the UK, each having different policies in place during the vaccination rollout.
Article Synopsis
- - The study examines how effective booster shots and breakthrough infections are at protecting against new Omicron BA.4/5 infections based on antibody responses in over 154,000 adults in the UK.
- - Results show that higher antibody levels correlate with better protection, and breakthrough infections offer stronger protection compared to booster shots, even at the same antibody levels.
- - Breakthrough infections lead to similar antibody levels as boosters but with a slower decline, suggesting they may provide longer-lasting protection and have implications for future vaccine strategies.
Aims: To develop a position statement which identifies research priorities to address health inequalities in diabetes and provides recommendations to researchers and research funders on how best to conduct research in these areas.
Methods: A two-day research workshop was conducted bringing together research experts in diabetes, research experts in health inequalities, healthcare professionals and people living with diabetes.
Results: The following key areas were identified as needing increased focus: How can we improve patient and public involvement and engagement to make diabetes research more inclusive of and relevant to diverse communities? How can we improve research design so that the people who could benefit most are represented? How can we use theories from implementation science to facilitate the uptake of research findings into routine practice to reach the populations with highest need? How can we collate and evaluate local innovation projects and disseminate best practice around tackling health inequalities in diabetes? How can we best collect and use data to address health inequalities in diabetes, including the harnessing of real-world and routinely collected data? How could research funders allocate funds to best address health inequalities in diabetes? How do we ensure the research community is representative of the general population?
Conclusions: This position statement outlines recommendations to address the urgent need to tackle health inequalities in diabetes through research and calls on the diabetes research community to act upon these recommendations to ensure future research works to eliminate unfair and avoidable disparities in health.
Background: The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant has been replaced by the highly transmissible Omicron BA.1 variant, and subsequently by Omicron BA.2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiven high SARS-CoV-2 incidence, coupled with slow and inequitable vaccine roll-out in many settings, there is a need for evidence to underpin optimum vaccine deployment, aiming to maximise global population immunity. We evaluate whether a single vaccination in individuals who have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 generates similar initial and subsequent antibody responses to two vaccinations in those without prior infection. We compared anti-spike IgG antibody responses after a single vaccination with ChAdOx1, BNT162b2, or mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the COVID-19 Infection Survey in the UK general population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntibody responses are an important part of immunity after Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination. However, antibody trajectories and the associated duration of protection after a second vaccine dose remain unclear. In this study, we investigated anti-spike IgG antibody responses and correlates of protection after second doses of ChAdOx1 or BNT162b2 vaccines for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the United Kingdom general population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study analyzes data from the UK's national COVID-19 Infection Survey to identify which demographic and behavioral factors correlate with higher rates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity between July 2020 and July 2021.
- Results showed that younger individuals, those living in Northern England or urban areas, and unvaccinated people were more likely to test positive, particularly during specific waves of the pandemic (e.g., Alpha and Delta variants).
- The findings suggest that real-time surveillance of these factors is crucial for effective public health strategies and monitoring the spread of COVID-19.
Article Synopsis
- The study analyzed the effectiveness of various symptoms for detecting COVID-19 infections (SARS-CoV-2) in the UK, comparing symptomatic responses among PCR-positive and negative individuals from April 2020 to August 2021.
- It found that 48% of those infected reported symptoms, which varied by factors like age and vaccination status, with notable changes over time and the emergence of new variants, especially the Delta variant.
- The research indicated that including more symptoms improved detection sensitivity of COVID-19 but also increased the number of symptoms reported per case significantly from 4.6 to 8.7.
Understanding the trajectory, duration, and determinants of antibody responses after SARS-CoV-2 infection can inform subsequent protection and risk of reinfection, however large-scale representative studies are limited. Here we estimated antibody response after SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population using representative data from 7,256 United Kingdom COVID-19 infection survey participants who had positive swab SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests from 26-April-2020 to 14-June-2021. A latent class model classified 24% of participants as 'non-responders' not developing anti-spike antibodies, who were older, had higher SARS-CoV-2 cycle threshold values during infection (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study assessed the effectiveness of the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 vaccines against the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) of SARS-CoV-2 in randomly selected households in the UK.
- Results showed a decrease in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infections and high viral loads, with reductions of 10-13% for BNT162b2 and 16% for ChAdOx1 compared to the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7).
- Despite the reduced effectiveness, vaccination still provides better protection than prior natural infection, with dynamics of immunity differing between the two vaccines, particularly in how quickly protection declines after the second dose.
We report that in a cohort of 45,965 adults, who were receiving either the ChAdOx1 or the BNT162b2 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, in those who had no prior infection with SARS-CoV-2, seroconversion rates and quantitative antibody levels after a single dose were lower in older individuals, especially in those aged >60 years. Two vaccine doses achieved high responses across all ages. Antibody levels increased more slowly and to lower levels with a single dose of ChAdOx1 compared with a single dose of BNT162b2, but waned following a single dose of BNT162b2 in older individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study analyzed SARS-CoV-2 data from 3.3 million nose and throat swabs collected in the UK from April 2020 to March 2021, focusing on cycle threshold (Ct) values as an indicator of viral load.
- Out of the positive samples, a wide range of Ct values was found; lower Ct values (indicating higher viral loads) were associated with symptoms and detecting more viral genes, while factors like sex and age had minimal impact.
- The findings suggest that fluctuations in community-level Ct values could serve as an early-warning sign for potential increases in SARS-CoV-2 cases.
Article Synopsis
- * Data was collected from nearly 1.9 million PCR tests and showed that both vaccines significantly reduced infections starting from 21 days after the first dose, with even greater reductions after a second dose.
- * The vaccines were particularly effective against symptomatic infections and those with higher viral loads, with no significant differences in effectiveness between the two vaccine types.