When the human immunodeficiency virus infects cells, it can either exploit the cells to start making more copies of itself or remain dormant — a phenomenon called latency. Keeping these reservoirs latent is a challenge. A new paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found a way to look for chemicals that can keep the virus suppressed into its dormant state.
“The current drug treatments block healthy cells from becoming infected by the virus,” said Yiyang Lu, a PhD student in the Dar lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “The latent reservoir poses a bigger problem because it can start producing the virus at any time. Consequently, patients have to remain on antiretroviral therapy all their lives to prevent a viral rebound.”
So far, there are two types of drug treatment strategies: shock-and-kill, where reactivated cells are killed due to HIV, and a second drug cocktail prevents other cells from being infected, or block-and-lock, which forces the virus into a deep latent state so that it does not reactivate again. The problem with the first approach is that there are always some leftover reservoirs that do not get activated. The problem with the second approach, which the researchers are trying to solve, is that there aren’t many drugs that have been discovered.
Since the transition from latency occurs randomly, measuring the fluctuations in gene expression can provide more coverage than the average gene expression. “Commercial drug screens usually look at mean gene expression. Instead, we used a drug screen that looks at fluctuations in gene expression. Our screen allowed us to therefore find more compounds that could have been overlooked,” Lu said.
“We implemented a time-series drug screening approach that are less commonly used in other labs,” said Roy Dar, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Illinois and faculty member of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. The researchers used a T- cell population, which is a reservoir for HIV, that had been infected by the virus. They imaged the cells in 15-minute intervals for 48 hours and tested over 1800 compounds. They looked at noise maps to identify which drugs can modulate the gene expression.
Using the screen, they were able to find five new latency-promoting chemicals, raising the possibility that similar screens can be successfully adapted to study other systems that exhibit variability in gene expression, such as cancer. They are currently working on understanding how the five novel drugs suppress viral reactivation. “We want to test if these drugs have off-target effects in terms of how many other genes they affect in the host cells,” Dar said. “We also want to test these drugs in patient samples to see whether these drugs suppress HIV in them.”
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Materials provided by Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Original written by Ananya Sen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

People who received a flu shot last flu season were significantly less likely to test positive for a COVID-19 infection when the pandemic hit, according to a new study. And those who did test positive for COVID-19 had fewer complications if they received their flu shot.
These new findings mean senior author Marion Hofmann Bowman, M.D., is continuing to recommend the flu shot to her patients even as the flu season may be winding down.
“It’s particularly relevant for vaccine hesitance, and maybe taking the flu shot this year can ease some angst about the new COVID-19 vaccine,” says Hofmann, an associate professor of internal medicine and a cardiologist at the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center. Michigan Medicine is the academic medical center of the University of Michigan.
Researchers reviewed medical charts for more than 27,000 patients who were tested for a COVID-19 infection at Michigan Medicine between March and mid-July of 2020. Of the nearly 13,000 who got a flu shot in the previous year, 4% tested positive for COVID-19. Of the 14,000 who hadn’t gotten a flu shot, nearly 5% tested positive for COVID-19. The association remained significant after controlling for other variables including ethnicity, race, gender, age, BMI, smoking status and many comorbid conditions, Hofmann says.
People who received their flu shot were also significantly less likely to require hospitalization, although the researchers didn’t find a significant difference in mortality between the two groups. No one in the study tested positive for both infections at the same time.
The underlying mechanism behind the association isn’t yet clear, Hofmann says.

Scientists are examining a possible link to tinnitus. A businessman’s suicide has lent urgency to the research.The suicide of Kent Taylor, the founder and chief executive of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, has drawn attention to a possible link between Covid-19 and tinnitus, the medical term for a constant ringing in the ears.Mr. Taylor suffered from a variety of symptoms following his illness, including severe tinnitus, his family said in a statement, adding that his suffering had become “unbearable.”Whether tinnitus is linked to Covid-19 — and if so, how often it occurs — is an unanswered question. Neither the World Health Organization nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tinnitus as a symptom, although auditory problems are common in other viral infections.But tinnitus is on the list of symptoms of long Covid published by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, along with fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness and more. And a few recent case reports and studies have hinted at a potential link.A study published on Monday in the Journal of International Audiology that looked at nearly 60 case reports and studies found that 15 percent of adults with Covid-19 reported symptoms of tinnitus. The authors believe that the respondents were describing either a new condition or a worsening one, though they are following up with the 60 or so researchers to be certain about how the surveys were worded.“In the 24 hours since we published, I’ve received about 100 emails,” said Kevin Munro, a professor of audiology at the University of Manchester and a co-author of the study. “Almost of all of them were people saying, ‘I was so happy to read about this, because my doctor thought I was crazy when I mentioned tinnitus and now I know I’m not the only one.’”There is also some evidence that Covid-19 can aggravate symptoms among people who had tinnitus before they contracted the disease. A study published late last year in the journal Frontiers in Public Health surveyed 3,100 people with tinnitus and found that 40 percent of the 237 respondents who had contracted Covid-19 reported that their symptoms were “significantly exacerbated” following the infection.“There are a lot of viruses that have an impact on the ears, including measles, mumps and rubella,” said Dr. Eldre Beukes, the audiologist at Anglia Ruskin University in England who led the study. “It could also be the case that medication taken to combat Covid is making tinnitus worse. And there is a well-known link between tinnitus and stress.”Kent Taylor, founder and chief executive of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain.Ron Bath/Texas Roadhouse, via Associated PressThe study cited a variety of factors that have increased stress for nearly everyone in the pandemic, including fear of catching the coronavirus, and social distancing rules that have increased isolation and loneliness.Home-schooling has also raised stress levels, as has greater consumption of coffee and alcohol, Dr. Beukes added.Covid-19 has complicated life for tinnitus sufferers even if they have not contracted the virus, said Kim Weller, an I.T. specialist who lives in Houston and is part of a tinnitus support group based there.“There’s a gentleman in Ohio who I text and talk on the phone with and I’d describe him as being at the end of his rope,” she said. “He’s not working, trouble sleeping, living alone. His situation is definitely worse because of Covid, because he’s just so isolated.”Exactly why tinnitus affects certain people is a bit of a mystery. There are roughly 200 causes of the condition, including exposure to loud noises, stress, hearing loss and perforated eardrums. There is currently no cure. Patients are often treated with cognitive behavioral therapy — essentially, talk therapy designed to rewire thoughts and behaviors — or coached on how to habituate themselves to the condition.The C.D.C. found in a 2011-2012 survey — the most recent data available — that 15 percent of respondents said they had suffered some kind of tinnitus. Of them, 26 percent said it was constant or near constant ringing, and 30 percent described the condition as a “moderate” or “very big” problem in their lives.A very small group of people in Dr. Beukes’s study — seven — reported that Covid-19 brought on tinnitus for the first time. Just over half of people with tinnitus said the illness had left their symptoms unchanged.Curiously, 6 percent said they were less bothered by tinnitus after contracting the disease. Dr. Beukes speculates that for these people, a life-threatening condition had the effect of reframing the noise in their head.“Contracting Covid meant that in some cases they were struggling to survive, and that left them with a very different perspective,” she said.The roughly 40 percent of respondents who said that Covid-19 made their tinnitus worse includes people like Aisling Starrs of Derry, in Northern Ireland. She’d coped with hearing loss in her right ear her entire life. Two years ago, she gave birth to a daughter and within minutes noticed a buzzing in both ears that did not abate.“Then in September I got Covid, and it went straight for my ears,” said Ms. Starrs, who is an occupational therapist. “On a scale of one to 10, it was a three before Covid. Since then, it’s been a seven.”She had no idea that exacerbated tinnitus might be a Covid-related problem until she learned otherwise on the website of the British Tinnitus Association, a co-sponsor of the Anglia Ruskin study.“I thought, ‘Thank God’ when I realized I wasn’t the only one out there,” she said. “I’ve met people through my work who don’t realize that there’s a medical term for the ringing in their ears. Just knowing that other people have the same condition is an enormous relief.”

Vaccinating health care workers resulted in an immediate and notable reduction of positive COVID-19 cases among employees, reducing the number of required isolations and quarantines by more than 90 percent, according to data at UT Southwestern Medical Center published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Health care workers were among the first groups to be eligible for vaccination.
“Real-world experience with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination at UT Southwestern demonstrated a marked reduction in the incidence of infections among our employees, preserving the workforce when it was most needed,” notes Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D., president of UT Southwestern and senior author.
During the first 31 days of vaccinations becoming available, UT Southwestern provided a first dose to 59 percent of roughly 23,000 employees, while 30 percent were able to be fully vaccinated in that time frame. Among the findings: 1.5 percent became infected. Infection rates were highest — 2.6 percent — among nonvaccinated employees. Infection rates were lowest — .05 percent — among those fully vaccinated.”Our ability to quickly vaccinate a majority of our workforce in the midst of what became the largest surge to date in the region made a critical difference in ensuring we were able to continue providing top-flight care while health systems were strained,” says John Warner, M.D., executive vice president for health system affairs at UT Southwestern.
Researchers also saw advantages among partially vaccinated individuals, and from Jan. 9, the actual number of positive tests among all UT Southwestern employees was consistently lower than the number projected.
The data also show continued need to address vaccine hesitancy, with UT Southwestern now approaching 70 percent immunization among its workforce.
“In light of this real-world experience clearly demonstrating the effectiveness of immunization, further understanding of the reticence of some individuals to take advantage of vaccination bears even greater importance,” says first author William Daniel, M.D., vice president and chief quality officer at UT Southwestern.
UT Southwestern has provided educational outreach to community groups and businesses, developed extensive online resources including Q&As and blogs, and is preparing to launch a multilingual public service announcement campaign to help educate diverse communities about vaccination and address issues of hesitancy.
“It is important to reach out across multiple platforms to effectively address people’s questions so that we can continue to make progress on vaccine hesitancy,” says Marc Nivet, Ed.D., executive vice president for institutional advancement at UT Southwestern.
Dr. Daniel, professor of internal medicine, holds the William T. Solomon Professorship in Clinical Quality Improvement at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Nivet is associate professor of family and community medicine. Dr. Podolsky, professor of internal medicine, holds the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science. Dr. Warner, professor of internal medicine, holds the Nancy and Jeremy Halbreich, Susan and Theodore Strauss Professorship in Cardiology and the Jim and Norma Smith Distinguished Chair for Interventional Cardiology.
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Another step towards understanding Alzheimer’s disease has been taken at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre. Molecular biologist Gilbert Bernier, and professor of neurosciences at Université de Montréal, has discovered a new function for the BMI1 gene, which is known to inhibit brain aging. The results of his work have just been published in Nature Communications.
In his laboratory, Bernier was able to establish that BMI1 was required to prevent the DNA of neurons from disorganizing in a particular way called G4 structures. This phenomenon occurs in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, but not in healthy elderly people. Thus, BMI1 would protect against Alzheimer’s by preventing, among other things, the excessive formation of G4s that disrupt the functioning of neurons.
“This discovery adds to our knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms leading to Alzheimer’s,” said Bernier. “There is still no cure for this disease, which now affects nearly one million Canadians. Any advance in the field brings hope to all these people and their families.”
In previous articles published in the journals Cell Reports and Scientific Reports, Bernier demonstrated that the expression of the BMI1 gene is specifically reduced in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. He also showed that inactivation of BMI1 in cultured human neurons or in mice was sufficient to recapitulate all the pathological markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
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Domestication has a consistent effect on the gut microbiota of animals and is similar to the effects of industrialisation in human populations, with ecological differences such as diet having a strong influence.
These findings, published today in eLife, highlight how the flexibility of the gut microbiota can help animals respond to ecological change and could help identify ways of manipulating gut microbial communities in the service of health.
Animals typically have complex communities of microbes living in their gut that can strongly influence functions such as immunity and metabolism. These communities can be extremely diverse and differ greatly between species and even individuals. We know, for instance, that domesticated animals, such as lab mice, have different gut microbial communities than their wild relatives. We have even seen large changes in the gut microbiota of industrialised human populations, some of which have been linked to the rise of certain diseases.
During domestication, animals experienced profound ecological changes that likely shaped their gut microbiota. “Domesticated animals and industrialised human populations potentially experienced similar ecological changes such as less diverse, more easily digestible diets, higher population densities, and more medical interventions,” explains first author Aspen Reese, who was a postdoctoral Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, US, at the time the study was carried out, and is now Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego, US. “We wanted to find out if domestication had consistent effects on the gut microbiota of animals and if the effects were indeed similar to those of industrialisation in humans.”
To assess the effects of domestication, the team sequenced and compared microbial DNA extracted from fecal samples of 18 species of wild and domesticated mammals. They found that domestication did have a clear global effect on gut microbiota, although the specific differences depended on the species.
Domestication involves strong selection pressure on animals, leading to important genetic and physiological changes that may also affect gut microbial communities. To unpack the relative roles of ecology and genetics, the team then swapped the diets of wild and domesticated animals. They found that the gut microbial communities of related animals, such as wolves and dogs, became much more similar to one another, supporting the idea that altered diets explain at least some of the changes in the gut microbiota seen with domestication.
To understand whether such differences also occur in humans, they then compared the gut microbial communities of humans to those of chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives, and between humans living in industrialised versus non-industrialised populations. They found that differences between the gut microbiota of humans and chimpanzees were similar to those seen between domesticated and wild animals, with the largest changes evident in industrialised populations. Because all humans are equally related to chimpanzees, these results showed that ecological factors rather than genetics drive aspects of the gut microbiota shared between domesticated animals and humans living in industrialised populations.
“Our research highlights that the flexibility of the gut microbiota likely helps animals and humans respond to rapid ecological change,” concludes senior author Rachel Carmody, Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. “But, at the same time, this flexibility can create opportunities for mismatch between the gut microbiota we have and the one our bodies have evolved to expect. As we increasingly appreciate the central role of the gut microbiota in biology, understanding the factors that shape it in animals and humans may help us identify new ways to improve experimental animal models, the wellbeing of animals we depend on, and ultimately, human health.”
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An analysis of sex differences in the genetics of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorders indicates that while there is substantial genetic overlap between males and females, there are noticeable sex-dependent differences in how genes related to the central nervous system, immune system, and blood vessels affect people with these disorders.
The findings, from a multinational consortium of psychiatric researchers including investigators and a senior author at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), could spur better treatments for major psychiatric disorders. They are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
The findings were made possible only through the cooperation of more than 100 investigators and research groups, who combed through the genomes of 33,403 people with schizophrenia, 19,924 with bipolar disorder, and 32,408 with major depressive disorder, as well as 109,946 controls (people without any of these diagnoses).
Their goal was to understand why these major psychiatric disorders differed between the sexes. For example, women have a significantly higher risk for major depressive disorder, whereas the risk for schizophrenia is significantly higher among men. The risk of bipolar disorder is about the same for both women and men, but disease onset, course, and prognosis differ markedly between the two.
“We’re in the era of Big Data, and we’re looking for genes that are associated with illnesses to identify druggable targets associated with the genotype, in order to develop more effective treatments for that illness that may differ by sex,” says senior author Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, founder and executive director of the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine (ICON) at MGH.
Goldstein and colleagues searched for clues in the form of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (“snips”), in which a single DNA “letter” (nucleotide) differs from one person to the next and between sexes.
“There are sex differences in the frequency of chronic diseases and cancers as well. It’s pervasive,” says Goldstein, who is also a professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “But medicine, essentially, has been built on models of men’s health and male animals. We need to develop our precision medicine models incorporating the effect of sex.”
By taking advantage of large psychiatric databases, the investigators were able to demonstrate that the risks for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder are affected by interactions of specific genes with sex, apart from the effects of sex hormones such as estradiol or testosterone.
For example, the investigators found interactions with schizophrenia and depression and sex in genes controlling for the production of vascular endothelial growth factor, a protein that promotes the growth of new blood vessels.
“My lab is studying the substantial co-occurrence of depression and cardiovascular disease. It turns out that both depression and schizophrenia have a very high co-occurrence with cardiovascular disease. We believe there are shared causes between psychiatric and cardiovascular diseases that are not due to the effects of medication,” she says. “In addition, the co-occurrence of depression and cardiovascular disease is twice as high in women as in men, and this may, in part, be associated with our finding in depression of sex differences in a gene controlling vascular endothelial growth factor.”
The investigators emphasize that although the specific causes of the diseases they studied are still unknown, “our study underscores the importance of designing large-scale genetic studies that have the statistical power to test for interactions with sex. Dissecting the impact of sex, genes, and pathophysiology will identify potential targets for sex-dependent or sex-specific therapeutic interventions creating more effective therapies for both men and women,” she says.
The analyses were supported by private donor Gwill York, the National Institute of Mental Health and the NIH Office for Research on Women’s Health.

A new technique that can trace which tissues and organs the DNA in our blood comes from has been reported today in the open-access eLife journal.
The method, called GETMap, could be used in prenatal screening, to monitor organ transplant rejection, or test for cancers that are concealed in the body.
“Analysis of circulating free DNA has been shown to be useful for screening for early asymptomatic cancers,” explains first author Wanxia Gai, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. “As cancer-associated DNA changes are present in a wide range of cancer types, detection of such changes can be used as a universal test for concealed cancers. However, in patients with a positive test result, you still need to follow up with tests to find the tumour’s location, for example, with a whole-body positron emission tomography, or PET, scan.”
To address this, the team developed a test that looks for genetic differences, as well as epigenetic changes to DNA (changes which do not affect DNA sequences) known as methylation. The DNA in our cells has a unique methylation ‘fingerprint’. Comparing the methylation fingerprints of different genetic types of DNA molecules circulating in the blood, for example molecules from a fetus, transplanted organ or tumour, with that of different tissues identifies where the DNA has come from.
The team first tested their approach in pregnant women, where they knew that blood DNA would include DNA from the mother, fetus, or both. As expected, GETMap found that DNA carrying fetus-specific genetic markers carried methylation signatures exclusively from the placenta. On the other hand, DNA molecules carrying mother-specific genetic markers carried methylation signatures from white blood cells. DNA molecules carrying genetic markers shared by both the mother and fetus were derived from both tissues.
Next, they tested the approach in blood donated by patients following a lung transplant. Detecting unusually high concentrations of DNA from a transplanted organ in blood can be a sign of organ rejection. But immediately after a transplant, there is often an unexplained surge in donor-derived DNA in the transplant recipient’s blood. This makes it challenging to detect whether the organ is being rejected if only genetic markers are used. By using a combination of genetic and epigenetic markers, the team identified the origins of this surge in donor DNA. At 72 hours after transplantation, only 17% of the circulating DNA was from the lung, compared with 78% from blood cells. This surprisingly high contribution from the blood cells was likely due to the release of DNA from blood cells in the blood vessels of the transplanted lung. With time, the amount of circulating DNA from the lung increased, and the amount from blood cells decreased. There also seemed to be more donor lung DNA in the blood of patients whose new lungs were rejected, compared to those who had a successful transplant.
The team also tested whether GETMap could detect the origin of tumour-derived DNA in the blood. In two patients with liver cancer, they found that 90% and 87% of the plasma DNA carrying mutations had come from the liver. To test this, they needed to know the exact tumour mutations they were looking for, and tumour tissue is not always available if its location is unknown. The team therefore tried to use methylation fingerprints to identify cancer mutations directly from blood DNA rather than tumour tissue. Although fewer mutations were found, the liver was still correctly identified as the source of the tumour-derived molecules. This suggests GETMap could help to reveal the tissue and location of concealed cancers in people who have tumour markers in their blood.
Finally, they challenged the GETMap test in a woman who developed lymphoma during pregnancy. In this instance, they were able to distinguish between the fetal-specific genes which were derived from the placenta, and the tumour-specific genes which originated solely from a family of white blood cells that were related to the cell type of the lymphoma.
“We have demonstrated the powerful synergy between genetic and epigenetic approaches for identifying the origin of circulating DNA in the blood, and shown its potential applications in cancer screening, prenatal testing and organ transplant monitoring,” says co-senior author Dennis Lo, Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, and the Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Our test could bring us closer to the vision of a blood test for a universal cancer marker, by allowing more targeted follow-up tests in specific organs,” concludes co-senior author Allen Chan, Professor of Chemical Pathology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “This could make cancer diagnosis earlier and more accurate, and reduce the use of whole-body scans and the associated exposure to radiation.”
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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersThe Duke of Sussex is to become chief impact officer at the US coaching and mental health firm, BetterUp.Prince Harry said in a statement that he was “really excited” about taking on the new role. His exact duties, hours and any payment are not clear.It is his latest job move after he and the Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior royals in March last year.It also comes after the duke and Meghan gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey earlier this month.In it, the couple alleged an unnamed royal family member had asked about how dark their son Archie’s skin might be, before he was born.Buckingham Palace has said the claim is “concerning”, but it will be addressed privately. Earlier this week, Buckingham Palace said a diversity review was under way across all royal households.12 things we learned from Meghan’s Oprah interviewHarry and Meghan step backHarry and Meghan rattle monarchy’s gilded cageIn his statement, Prince Harry said his goal in his new function would be to “lift up critical dialogues around mental health, build supportive and compassionate communities, and foster an environment for honest and vulnerable conversations”.Prince Harry will not manage employees or have people report directly to him, but he is likely to spend some time in the company’s San Francisco headquarters once it is safe to do so, BetterUp CEO Alexi Robichaux told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). In his role as the company’s first chief impact officer, Prince Harry is expected to have input into initiatives including product strategy decisions and charitable contributions, and advocate publicly on topics related to mental health, the WSJ reports.Prince Harry said that when he met Mr Robichaux, they “instantly recognised a shared passion for helping others realise their full potential”.The chief impact officer position is relatively rare in the corporate world, notes the WSJ – it is seen more commonly in non-profit organisations such as Amnesty International.BetterUp, which was founded in 2013, provides mobile-based professional coaching, counselling and mentorship.The firm says it has some 2,000 coaches offering services in 49 languages in 66 countries.Prince Harry has previously launched initiatives such as the Invictus Games, which aim for members of the armed forces to use sport for psychological and physical rehabilitation. He has also advocated publicly on mental health issues.Prince Harry and Meghan now live in California after confirming in January that they would step back as “senior” royals and work to become financially independent.They announced last year that they had reached a deal with streaming giant Netflix to make a range of programmes, some of which they may appear in, as well as striking a deal with music streaming service Spotify.Where do Harry and Meghan get their money?

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightEPAVladimir Putin has been vaccinated against Covid-19, partly to encourage other Russians who remain deeply reluctant to get the jab.Although he has previously been filmed on horseback, ice skating and flying with Siberian cranes, he chose to be vaccinated behind closed doors.The Kremlin has not specified which vaccine Mr Putin received.The aim was to underline “all three Russian vaccines are absolutely reliable, very good and effective,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Speaking to the BBC, he brushed off the suggestion that showing President Putin getting a shot in the arm would help persuade the sceptical majority of Russians to follow suit. As for believing the president actually had the jab, he said people would just have to “take our word for it”.There’s likely to be a limited increase in the slow pace of vaccination as a result.Grand plans, low interestThe president’s own daughter took part in the Sputnik V safety trials, but he’s seemed oddly cautious given how highly he recommends the jab for others. Mr Putin, who is 68 years old, initially claimed he was waiting until it had been deemed safe for the over-65s. Later he said he’d wait for autumn when his doctors could fit the Covid shot in his “vaccine schedule”. Mr Putin also told a gathering of Russian news editors that he wouldn’t be a “performing monkey” and get vaccinated before the TV cameras, surprising many with his sudden camera-shyness. Mr Putin revealed on Monday that 6.3 million Russians had so far received one dose of a Covid vaccine since he became the world’s first leader to announce a “large-scale” vaccination back in December. That’s only around 5% of the adult population.image copyrightReutersHis target is to protect 60% of adults by July – sufficient for “collective immunity” to stop the virus spreading. But that would require boosting the current vaccination-rate from just a few thousand to more than 700,000 every day – and that’s just a single dose of the vaccine.Despite Russia touting its most widely available jab, Sputnik V, as the world’s first and best, interest at home is low and falling. Why many in Russia are reluctant to have Sputnik vaccineA Levada-Center poll suggests the number of Russian opposed to getting it rose to 62% in February, with most citing concerns over possible side effects despite the fact Sputnik proved safe and almost 92% effective in trials. Many also see no urgent need for protection. There’s been no lockdown here since spring 2020, the number of new infections is currently falling and the death toll from Covid is barely mentioned. The daily count has reached 95,818, though the number of excess deaths recorded so far is some four times higher.Read more from Sarah here: How Russia glosses over its Covid death tollGlobal ambition Meanwhile, enthusiasm for Russia’s main vaccine has been increasing abroad.On Tuesday, Vietnam became the 56th country to register Sputnik and Russia says it has done deals to supply 700 million doses of the vaccine overseas.But it’s unclear when that demand can be met. Russia plans to transfer the technology for production abroad but Sputnik’s backer, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, will not answer questions about any current supply from overseas facilities or its targets.In a call with scientists and producers on Monday, President Putin was full of praise for their achievements with three Russian vaccines now registered for emergency use, including EpiVacCorona and CoviVac.A batch of a new version of Sputnik V that doesn’t need freezing has just been distributed and trials on the one-jab Sputnik Light have concluded. But scaling up production has proved complicated. Total vaccine output will increase to 12.5 million “units” of two doses in March, according to the industry ministry, with an extra five million units added in April. Still, there have been reports of shortages in some Russian regions.One clinic the BBC visited this month in Perm admitted it had run out of the first dose of Sputnik and didn’t expect more for several days. Putin back to business Now he’s been vaccinated, it’s possible Russians could be seeing more of Mr Putin in the flesh.He has spent much of the pandemic working from his official residence outside Moscow. Those meeting him in person have had to quarantine first. The Kremlin says he is getting vaccinated now in order to have the “necessary level of immunity” to get back to travelling and working, ahead of parliament elections in autumn.You may also be interested in: