Chinese laboratory believes it can stop pandemic "without vaccine"
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In the face of a health emergency, hundreds of laboratories are competing to produce a vaccine against Covid-19 disease. For their part, Chinese researchers claim to have developed an antibody-based treatment that would counteract the pandemic, "without a vaccine."
Teams at Peking University ("Beida") are currently working on a drug that would not only speed healing, but also temporarily immunize against Covid-19. It could be released faster than a vaccine.
Divide the viral load by 2,500 in five days of treatment.
This treatment would already be effective in mice. Professor of biochemistry and director of the Beida Center for Advanced Genomic Innovation, Sunney Xie, said his teams had taken antibodies from 60 patients cured of the disease and injected them into rodents.
The results indicate that by injecting these antibodies into a mouse prior to administering the virus, it remains safe from infection. After five days, the viral load detected in mice would be divided by 2,500. "This means that this potential drug has a therapeutic effect," says Professor Sunney Xie.
A study on this clinical trial was published on Monday, May 18 in the journal Cell. His report is optimistic. She sees this treatment as a "potential remedy" against the disease and confirms that it would speed healing for patients.
Also according to Professor Sunney Xie, this treatment could be available before the end of the year, "in time in case of a new offensive by Covid-19." The researchers are optimistic that these antibodies will become an effective medicine to quickly contain the pandemic.
In fact, the race for vaccines, in which many laboratories participate, is not a guarantee. According to the World Health Organization, it would take another 12 to 18 months to find and distribute a reliable serum.
"Temporary immunity" to the virus
She adds that the 14 antibodies used in the context of her experimental treatment could easily duplicate on a large scale and offer temporary immunity to the virus. This would protect caregivers and / or people at risk for a few weeks, even a few months, the biologist hopes.
"We could stop the pandemic with treatment that works, even without a vaccine," he hopes.
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