Beijing: China has said it is on the verge of developing a new drug which will prevent the spread of coronavirus. The new drug being developed at a laboratory here has the ability to halt the pandemic. China has also said the new drug will be put to clinical trials on humans soon.
Short-term immunity
Sources said that the drug is currently being tested at China’s Peking University. Scientists working on the drug say it can shorten the recovery time for infected patients. Also it can provide short-term immunity from the COVID-19 virus.
Drug successfully tested on animals
Top Chinese scientist Sunney Xie has been quoted as saying that the drug has been successfully tested on animals. Now it is undergoing human trials. Xie is the director of Peking University’s ‘Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Genomics’.
“When we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500,” Xie has been quoted as saying. “That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect,” he added.
Antibodies in use
The drug uses neutralising antibodies – produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells. These antibodies were isolated by Xie’s team from the blood of 60 patients who had recovered from COVID-19.
The team’s research findings have been published Sunday in the scientific journal ‘Cell’. It suggests that using antibodies provides a potential ‘cure’ for the disease and shortens recovery time. Xie said his team had been working ‘day and night’ searching for the antibody.
“Our expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled,” Xie stated.
Ready later this year
The top Chinese scientist is hopeful that the drug will be ready to use later in the year during winter. Experts have predicted another winter outbreak of coronavirus, which has so far killed more than 3,20,000 people worldwide.
“Planning for the clinical trial is underway,” said Xie further stated. He said the clinical human trials will be carried out in Australia and other countries. This is because the number of active coronavirus cases has substantially decreased in China. Hence effective number of trials cannot be carried out. “The hope is these neutralising antibodies can become a specialised drug that would stop the pandemic,” Xie asserted.
More vaccines on anvil
China already has five potential coronavirus vaccines at the human trial stage, a health official said last week. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has time and again said that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months. Till then the world will be a hostage to coronavirus.
Using antibodies in drug treatments is not a new approach, and it has been successful in treating several other viruses such as HIV, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
Xie said his researchers had “an early start” since the outbreak started in China before spreading to other countries.
Agencies