A new study by Chinese scientists claims that medication canhelp stop the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps, without a vaccine.
The drug being developed at China¡¯s prestigious PekingUniversity has been tested successfully on animals.
Vaccines are basically chemicals that wheninjected into the body, help it develop antibodies. Antibodies, on the otherhand, are developed by the body¡¯s immune system, to fight pathogens.
In this study, scientists are neutralising antibodies produced by the human immune system, to prevent the virus infecting cells.
Sunny Xie, director of the university's Beijing AdvancedInnovation Center for Genomics, told AFP "When we injected neutralisingantibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a the factor of 2,500," said Xie. "That means this potential drug has (a)therapeutic effect."
A study on the team's research was published in the scientific journal, Cell, suggests that using the antibodies provides a potential 'cure' for the disease and shortens recovery time.
Xie said his team had beenworking "day and night" searching for the antibody. "Ourexpertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When werealised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find theneutralising antibody we were thrilled."
"The hope is these neutralized antibodies can become aspecialized drug that would stop the pandemic," he said.
China already has five potential coronavirus vaccines at thehuman trial stage, a health official said last week.
But the World Health Organization has warned that developinga vaccine could take 12 to 18 months.
Xieadded that the drug should be ready for use later this year and in time for anypotential winter outbreak of the virus, which has already infected 4.8 million peoplearound the world and killed more than 3,15,000.
"Planning for the clinical trial is underway,"said Xie, adding it will be carried out in Australia and other countries, sincecases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.
Using antibodies in drug treatments is not a new approach,and it has been successful in treating several other viruses such as HIV, Ebolaand Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
Xie said his researchers had "an early start"since the outbreak started in China before spreading to other countries.
Ebola drug, Remdesivir, was considered a hopeful earlytreatment for COVID-19 - clinical trials in the US showed it shortened therecovery time in some patients by a third - but the difference in mortalityrate was not significant.