Infectious Diseases

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, spoke to Well + Good for its story on when children will be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. “Pfizer first needs to submit the data to the FDA,” he said. “The bottom line is that there is still a significant process that needs to be done. ... It’s far from a done deal.”

An article reporting that the World Health Organization has approved the first malaria vaccine quotes Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, who said researchers have tried and failed many times in the past to create a vaccine that would be effective against malaria. “It’s a tough vaccine to make, and there have been numerous attempts that haven’t worked out.”

Spectrum News interviewed John A. Sellick Jr., DO, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, for a story on the COVID-19 outlook for the upcoming holiday season. “If you are going to go door to door, especially in groups of kids, everybody should be masked, everybody should try to stay as apart from one another as they possibly can,” he said. “And then for people at home, you know, if you choose to answer the door, you should have a mask on and maintain distance.”

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, was quoted in a story about the “urgent” health advisory the CDC, directing pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19. “Most women will do whatever it takes to protect their fetus and many are afraid of taking any vaccine, drug or medicine during pregnancy,” Russo says. “It’s all about concerns for their baby, but what we know now completely flips that thinking so that getting vaccinated is in the best interest for them and their baby.”

A Buffalo News story reporting that ICU beds in Western New York hospitals are filling up with patients with other conditions and ailments, not COVID-19, quotes Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases. “What could increase ICU bed use? A surge in elective surgeries? A surge in non-COVID admissions and people that have been staying home or dragging their feet addressing medical issues?” The story also quotes John A. Sellick Jr., DO, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases. “There are definitely COVID patients in the units, but it’s not like it was a year ago, or beginning of this year,” Sellick said.

John A. Sellick Jr., DO, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, was among the experts multiple outlets reached out to for insight into the effectiveness of at-home COVID-19 tests. If you don’t have symptoms of COVID-19 and are just testing to see if you have the virus before doing something like going to a wedding or visiting an elderly relative, there’s a higher chance you’ll get a false reading, says Sellick. “The problem with these tests is that their specificity is not as good as a PCR test,” he says. “You can get false positives, especially in low prevalence settings.”

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, was quoted in a story about Rochester area families who are suing local hospitals refusing to administer Ivermectin, a controversial drug not approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19. “Some studies have been done and to date, none of those studies have shown that Ivermectin benefits patients with COVID,” Russo said. “There are still some ongoing studies but at this time we do not recommend it to use, it's not recommended by the FDA, it’s not recommended by the infectious disease side of America.”

Timothy F. Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and senior associate dean for clinical and translational research, was quoted in a story about California becoming the first state to announce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all children. Murphy was asked about when the vaccines might be approved for children. There needs to be “at least” six months of observation after a vaccine is granted emergency use authorization before it can be fully approved, Murphy said, adding that it will likely be November at the earliest for kids aged 12 and up.

A Buffalo News story answering the question of how effective natural immunity is quotes Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases. Some people’s post-COVID immunity “may be as good as vaccination, some may be even better, some may be worse,” Russo said. “There’s a lot of variability. We’re still sorting this out.” The story also quotes Peter Winkelstein, MD, executive director of UB’s Institute for Healthcare Informatics, who said, “From a science standpoint, we don’t have a way to do a test on somebody and know you’re immune for sure. We can test for antibodies, and we can test those levels, but we don’t know what level you need to be immune to COVID.”

Prevention quoted John A. Sellick Jr., DO, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, in a story about possible side effects from the COVID-19 vaccination booster. “Overall, what they’ve shown is that, with the third dose, people shouldn’t expect anything much worse than they had with the second dose,” he said. Other media outlets also carried the story.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, said that cruise passengers should carefully consider traveling on ships that allow unvaccinated guests on board. “The reality is that someone on the boat is likely to be infected with COVID-19, either because they were unvaccinated or are asymptomatic with a breakthrough infection,” said Russo, who pointed out that cruise ships often have indoor dining and entertainment, areas that are ripe for viruses to spread. “S]omeone could contaminate the food buffet and it can spread rapidly … it's all because of people staying and moving around in close quarters.

A story in Yahoo! Life about there not being adequate data in the U.S. to support mixing COVID-19 vaccines quoted Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, who mentioned that during the initial vaccine rollout, some people mistakenly got Pfizer for their the first shot and then Moderna for their second with no extreme effects. “I don't anticipate that there would be any issues from a safety point of view or an efficacy point of view in terms of crossing the two mRNA platforms," Russo explained.

WKBW interviewed Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, for its story on the Erie County Health Department’s rollout of a school-based COVID-19 testing program. “I think this is important because it adds another layer of protection on top of the mitigation plan to help keep our students safe,” said Russo.

A Yahoo! News story about how common it is to get a false positive result from a COVID-19 test quoted Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases. It is important to note that there are several COVID-19 tests available, and each has its own level of accuracy. Two of the most common tests are rapid antigen tests (often used for home testing) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which are sent to a lab and are considered the gold standard for COVID-19 testing. As the amount of COVID-19 in a community decreases, there is a greater chance of a false positive “simply because no test is 100 percent,” he told Yahoo. “There is a pre-test probability that if you screen a whole range of asymptomatic people and there is a low disease burden, the majority of positives will likely be false. That’s exactly what happens when you do the math.”

Press From quoted John A. Sellick Jr., DO, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, for information on melioidosis, a rare tropical illness that has infected four people, according to a CDC statement. “Most of us infectious disease doctors have never seen a case,” said Sellick. Melioidosis (Whitmore’s disease) is mostly a disease of tropical climates. The bacteria that causes melioidosis is found in contaminated water and soil and is spread to humans and animals though direct contact with the contaminated surface. Each case was reported in one of four states: Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Minnesota. Two people had no known risk factors for the disease and two have died, according to the story.