Jump to content
Check your account email address ×

Breakthrough


Recommended Posts

Breakthrough

 
 
Dominic Penna
Fri, February 5, 2021, 1:17 PM
 
 
Medical teams celebrate before receiving coronavirus vaccines as Israel kicks off its coronavirus vaccination drive, at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center - Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Medical teams celebrate before receiving coronavirus vaccines as Israel kicks off its coronavirus vaccination drive, at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center - Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

A new coronavirus drug which successfully cured 30 cases of the disease in Israeli hospital patients has been hailed by scientists as a ‘huge breakthrough’.

The EXO-CD24 substance was developed at the Ichilov Medical Centre in Tel Aviv and successfully completed its first phase of clinical trials on Friday.

The treatment was given to 30 patients with coronavirus, whose conditions ranged from moderate to severe.

 

Twenty-nine of the patients were then discharged from the hospital in the following three to five days, while one patient took slightly longer to recover.

A protein known as CD24 is delivered to the lungs by exosomes in the drug, which helps to rebalance the immune system and prevent it from overreacting to the virus.

Professor Nadir Arber originally designed EXO-CD24, which is breathed in as a gas and taken once every five days, in order to treat patients who had ovarian cancer.

“Even if the vaccines do their job, and even if there aren't any new mutations, one way or another, the coronavirus will be staying with us,” Prof Arber told the news site Arutz Sheva.

“That’s why we developed this special medication. It’s been about half a year from the time the idea was hatched to the first human trials [being] conducted.”

Roni Gamzu, the director of the Ichilov Medical Centre, said that the research during phase one of the trial was “advanced and sophisticated and may save coronavirus patients”.

Speaking to the Times of Israel, he said: “The results of the phase one trials are excellent, and all give us confidence in the method Arber has been researching in his lab for many years.”

No placebo was used in the first stage of the trial, and the next phase of the clinical trials will continue to examine the effects and efficacy of the treatment.

The drug Allocetra, which has been developed at the Hadassah Medical Centre, has also reported promising results in the second stage of its clinical trial.

Israel announced yesterday that it will ease lockdown restrictions but keep its borders closed after a drop in its number of coronavirus cases.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Trying to pay the bills, lol

×
×
  • Create New...