‘She started getting death threats and other abusive and obscene messages from anti-vaxxers accusing her of killing her own child.’ - this is a quote about a bereaved mum whose child died of anaphylaxis and was to young to have been considered for a vaccine anyway Source theguardian.com/society/2023/j…

Sad to see the old myth of the immune system being a muscle that requires constant infection as a child to keep working. Its just not true and actually it can be risky too If you look at mortality data from the 1800s our average lifespan was 40 and yes there was a big distribution and one factor was that many kids died of infection before the age of 5

Good review summarising areas of research focus needed to understand why some people get Long Covid elifesciences.org/articles/86015
This causes a wide range of symptoms affecting different organ systems, including heart, respiratory, and neurological. There are two main theories which overlap - one is about viral persistence
- the virus enters cells via receptor called ACE 2 - this is not exclusive to the lungs. So might this cause issues elsewhere?Why an acute infection would cause these longer term issues is unclear though.

Another #VaccineConversation about the COVID vaccines - what we are using here in UK and where we might go next. First mRNA vaccines- many of us have had these now and @britsocimm made this brilliant infographic of how they work They are super easy to adapt quickly and can be made using information for more than one variant- so last autumn they used info (mRNA) from a newer COVID variant and the original ancestral strain to evoke an immune response

Happy #VaccineConversations day today. A short 🧵 on evolution of vaccine development.. @britsocimm We may not always appreciate those shots in the arm we get against disease such as flu and covid but the science behind them and the story of how vaccines developed is fascinating

For those who say disinformation about covid vaccines matters less now cos many are vaccinated (and that is a whole debate in of itself) this affects all vaccine trust Just sitting in a research talk now showing massive drop off post covid in flu vaccine uptake in poorer deprivation areas

Today is #LongCovidAwarenessDay
LongCovid is a condition comprising often severe symptoms that can affect many different organs. It occurs following infection with SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms include cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological as summarised by @EricTopol and colleagues Its REALLY common. Estimates vary - it occurs in at least 10% of Covid 19 infections and around 65 million individuals worldwide are estimated to have Long Covid.

Our data using Britain Breathing citizen science app is showing that people in urban areas have worse hay fever and asthma symptoms. The work has a long journey to reach this stage 🧵
nature.com/articles/s4159…
@CarolineEJay @annannfryingpan @lankymanky @LydiaBeckerIII @UoMEngage I was working with non native English speakers exploring research and questions around parasite infection. The groups often asked why there were so many allergies. My son too developed asthma and all this made me curious to start looking at this topic more.

A certain cardiologist and fox pundit and taking nonsense about vaccines and miscarriage. This has been debunked countless times. There is no evidence of the vaccine causing miscarriage. However covid can cause serious issues for babies. I urge you to look at the excellent resources by @VikiLovesFACS - her tweets and resources she has collated are outstanding drive.google.com/file/d/1_wHIYX…

A brief 🧵on the term ‘immunity’ - this is perhaps misunderstood by many and exploited by others. Immunity refers to the development of memory immune cells -T and B cells that have encountered a pathogen (virus,bacteria,funghi,parasite) and have gone through the necessary programming to be able to react to that pathogen should they meet it again