Scientists in China believe new drug can stop pandemic 'without vaccine'
A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the capacity to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt.
The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting a global race to find treatments and vaccines.
A drug being tested by scientists at China's prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for all those infected, but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say.
Sunney Xie, director of the university's Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the pet testing stage.
"When we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by one factor of 2,500," said Xie. "That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect."
The drug uses neutralising antibodies -- made by the human disease fighting capability to prevent the virus infecting cells -- which Xie's team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.
A report on the team's research, published Sunday in the scientific journal Cell, shows that using the antibodies provides a potential "cure" for the disease and shortens recovery time.
Xie said his team have been working "day and night" looking for the antibody.
"Our expertise is single-cell genomics instead of immunology or virology. Whenever we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled."
He added that the drug ought to be ready for use later this season and in time for just about any potential winter outbreak of the virus, which has infected 4.8 million people all over the world and killed a lot more than 315,000.
"Planning for the clinical trial is underway," said Xie, adding it'll be completed in Australia and other countries since cases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.
"The hope is these neutralised antibodies may become a specialised drug that could stop the pandemic," he said.
China already has five potential coronavirus vaccines at the human trial stage, a health official said last week.
However the World Health Organization has warned that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 1 . 5 years.
Scientists have also pointed to the potential benefits associated with plasma -- a blood fluid -- from recovered those who have developed antibodies to the virus enabling your body's defences to attack it.
A lot more than 700 patients have obtained plasma remedy in China, a process which authorities said showed "very good therapeutic effects".
"However, it (plasma) is bound in supply," Xie said, noting that the 14 neutralising antibodies found in their drug could be put into mass production quickly.
Using antibodies in prescription drugs is not a new approach, and it's been successful in treating several other viruses such as for example HIV, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
Xie said his researchers had "an early on start" since the outbreak were only available in China before spreading to other countries.
Ebola drug Remdesivir was considered a hopeful early treatment for COVID-19 -- clinical trials in america showed it shortened the recovery time in some patients by a third -- but the difference in mortality rate had not been significant.
The new drug might even offer short-term protection against the virus.
The analysis showed that if the neutralising antibody was injected prior to the mice were infected with the virus, the mice stayed free of infection no virus was detected.
This may offer non permanent protection for medical personnel for a couple weeks, which Xie said they are hoping to "extend to some months".
More than 100 vaccines for COVID-19 are in the works globally, but as the procedure of vaccine development is more demanding, Xie is hoping that the brand new drug is actually a faster and better way to avoid the global march of the coronavirus.
"We would be able to stop the pandemic with an efficient drug, even without a vaccine," he said.
Source: japantoday.com
