Emily
Editor, Senior Moderator
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...id-success-in-hunt-for-new-vaccine/ar-AAYLVmD
Scientists probe Japan's remarkable COVID success in hunt for new vaccine
Lucy Craft - Thursday
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Despite having the world's oldest population, with almost one in three residents 65 or older, Japan has had fewer COVID fatalities per capita than almost any other developed nation. As of Thursday, Japan had registered only 246 COVID-19 deaths per million people, surpassing even New Zealand (263) which initially adopted a zero-COVID, maximum-suppression strategy. By comparison, the U.S. has a cumulative toll of 3,045 deaths per million people.
But COVID mortality statistics alone, often based on inconsistent and/or incomplete records, don't tell the whole story. Researchers estimate that Japan has had 111,000 "excess deaths," more than five times the number of reported COVID fatalities, when mortality from disrupted medical care and social dislocation are factored in.
Japan's excess mortality rate, at 44 per 100,000, far exceeds that of South Korea (4), Singapore (-15), Australia (-37), New Zealand (-9); China (0.6) and Taiwan (-5). Even less-wealthy Vietnam and Thailand fared better.
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Japan's generally healthy population also helped it withstand the pandemic. Lifespans have continued to expand for four decades, giving Japanese the highest average longevity on earth at 87 years for women, 81 for men. While the U.S. obesity rate ballooned to almost 42% in 2020, Japan enjoys one of the lowest obesity rates in the world, at about 4%.
Thanks in part to its universal health insurance scheme, cancer and heart disease rates are also low. Like obesity, these diseases are major underlying risk factors for complications with a coronavirus infection.
Scientists have been probing a theory, meanwhile, that Japanese people may have an inherent advantage at the cellular level when it comes to fighting off COVID
Researchers at the state-funded RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences have honed in on human leukocyte antigens (HLA), proteins found on most cells in all of our bodies, as a potential antiviral defense. HLA markers are well-known in the field of organ transplantation, where matching HLA types, not just blood types, is crucial to reducing the chance of organ rejection.
Riken's study found that Japanese subjects with the HLA type A24, common here and in some other parts of Asia, develop "cross-reactive" T cells in response to seasonal coronaviruses, or common colds, which can redeploy to kill off COVID-19 infections far more quickly and effectively than in those who lack that specific marker.
Shin-ichiro Fujii, who is leading the study, told CBS News that he's applied to run clinical trials on a vaccine aimed at immunocompromised cancer patients that would simulate the benefit of having the A24 type HLA proteins in people who are unable to develop neutralizing antibodies from the existing vaccines...
Scientists probe Japan's remarkable COVID success in hunt for new vaccine
Lucy Craft - Thursday
...
Despite having the world's oldest population, with almost one in three residents 65 or older, Japan has had fewer COVID fatalities per capita than almost any other developed nation. As of Thursday, Japan had registered only 246 COVID-19 deaths per million people, surpassing even New Zealand (263) which initially adopted a zero-COVID, maximum-suppression strategy. By comparison, the U.S. has a cumulative toll of 3,045 deaths per million people.
But COVID mortality statistics alone, often based on inconsistent and/or incomplete records, don't tell the whole story. Researchers estimate that Japan has had 111,000 "excess deaths," more than five times the number of reported COVID fatalities, when mortality from disrupted medical care and social dislocation are factored in.
Japan's excess mortality rate, at 44 per 100,000, far exceeds that of South Korea (4), Singapore (-15), Australia (-37), New Zealand (-9); China (0.6) and Taiwan (-5). Even less-wealthy Vietnam and Thailand fared better.
...
Japan's generally healthy population also helped it withstand the pandemic. Lifespans have continued to expand for four decades, giving Japanese the highest average longevity on earth at 87 years for women, 81 for men. While the U.S. obesity rate ballooned to almost 42% in 2020, Japan enjoys one of the lowest obesity rates in the world, at about 4%.
Thanks in part to its universal health insurance scheme, cancer and heart disease rates are also low. Like obesity, these diseases are major underlying risk factors for complications with a coronavirus infection.
Scientists have been probing a theory, meanwhile, that Japanese people may have an inherent advantage at the cellular level when it comes to fighting off COVID
Researchers at the state-funded RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences have honed in on human leukocyte antigens (HLA), proteins found on most cells in all of our bodies, as a potential antiviral defense. HLA markers are well-known in the field of organ transplantation, where matching HLA types, not just blood types, is crucial to reducing the chance of organ rejection.
Riken's study found that Japanese subjects with the HLA type A24, common here and in some other parts of Asia, develop "cross-reactive" T cells in response to seasonal coronaviruses, or common colds, which can redeploy to kill off COVID-19 infections far more quickly and effectively than in those who lack that specific marker.
Shin-ichiro Fujii, who is leading the study, told CBS News that he's applied to run clinical trials on a vaccine aimed at immunocompromised cancer patients that would simulate the benefit of having the A24 type HLA proteins in people who are unable to develop neutralizing antibodies from the existing vaccines...