Medical researchers around the world take their share in the global fight against COVID-19. These researchers provide the hope to the world that desperately awaits a vaccine against the cause of the pandemic. Just hours ago, Israel’s health minister announced that Israeli researchers found that derivatives of two Gaucher’s disease drugs are effective against coronavirus.
Credit: Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Researchers from Israel’s Institute of Biological Research (IIBR) examined the effects of Cerdelga and a drug in advanced stages of approval on the virus. Results of the study as published in bioRxiv preprint platform indicated that the drugs derivatives reduced the replication capacity of the virus. Replication of the virus is found to have caused destruction and mortality of the host’s cell. The decrease in the coronavirus replication prevents cell damage after being infected by the virus. The experiments on the drugs’ efficacy on animals are currently being conducted.
This report is an added welcome development as China’s CanSino Biologics, has been found to have triggered immune system responses against the new coronavirus and was tagged safe for humans. However, further investigation has to be conducted to determine whether the vaccine would be protective.
A week ago, Moderna-developed vaccine indicated promising early results. Being the first vaccine to be tested on people, the vaccine has to be tested to a bigger number of humans to determine its effects in the real world. Details of the results of the study have not been shared publicly. Efforts to come up with multiple vaccines is the only hope to accelerate stoppage of the pandemic that has been plaguing the world for months.
Universities and companies including Pfizer, CanSino, and the University of Oxford have been into their respective medical and scientific quest to develop the vaccine that would fight against the dreaded virus that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the closure of schools, and the slump in the world economy.
LINKS
Coronavirus study in China shows CanSino’s vaccine spurs immune responses
Moderna Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Shows Promising Early Results
Israeli research: Gaucher’s disease drug effective against COVID-19
Why disrupt in the first place? What they are doing is for humanity to defeat COVID-19.
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