Covid-19: Treatments, Cures, and Vaccines

Despite all of the talk about vaccine, pros/cons fear/elation etc....this type of a treatment will come much faster and will be the true enabler to return society to a more normal cadence. Drugs derived from these antibodies would be as widely distributable and anti-biotics for bacterial infections and equally common place.

Scientists have developed antibodies that can kill coronavirus

 

Not sure the best place to add this, so i added it in both the main thread, as well as this one.

FDA has granted emergency approval to 2 Anti-Body tests that demonstrate 99.8/9% specificity and 100% sensitivity. That means that the this greatly reduces the likelihood of false positives.

Study suggests Abbott COVID-19 antibody test highly likely to give correct results

 

This should be interesting. With not only the president, but many people across America voicing distrust to the point of xenophobia of all things Chinese, I wonder if this vaccine will ever see the light of day in the United States?

Chinese Drugmaker in Talks to Test Virus Vaccine Globally

 

This could be an interesting stop-gap until a vaccine is available, and even beyond.

Formula Developed to Combat HIV Could Double as Novel Coronavirus Preventive

 

I suspect Russia or Brazil would be a better option. China can import their own testing facilities, Putin/jackass in brazil can save the day, and if it kills a few thousand people that is the price of doing business.

 

Originally a vaccine for HIV?? Now envisioned as anadditional line of defense for front line and at risk people??


Rohan’s lab originally developed formulations for Q-griffithsin as a potential preventive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Palmer’s lab has also been testing Q-griffithsin on a number of viruses. The HIV preventive project received funding from the National Institutes of Health’s Division of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. However, after seeing the fast spread of COVID-19, Rohan and Palmer looked back at previous data indicating the effectiveness of Q-griffithsin against other forms of coronavirus.

“This is a product that already has a nice safety profile and has an application that has allowed it move forward in the clinic. We believe this is a product we can rapidly advance in a realistic way,” Rohan said. “With adequate funding, we’re hoping to move the product into the clinic before the end of the year.”

 

If this treatment can get through larger studies and still prove effective, this would go a long, long way towards making people feel better about venturing out. I personally do not know anything about these drugs, side effects (though the study addressed that for the 120 patients tested, etc....and 120 patients is by no means definitive. However, the more of these advancements we get throughout this summer, the better equipped we will be for "Wave 2" if it materializes.

Triple combination therapy shows promise for COVID-19 patients with less severe illnesses

 

Treatment With Hydroxychloroquine or Azithromycin and In-Hospital Mortality in Patients With COVID-19

 

For the sake of the Italian people and everyone else frankly, I really hope that this proves out in trials later this year. More than most the Italians need to have good news.

Scientists in Italy claim to have successfully developed Covid-19 vaccine | The Irish Post

 

There are quite a few these now. The issue is that there are numerous epitopes of the same antigen on COVID, so none of them can kill all variants. Killing only one variant will simply allow another variant to proliferate in its place.

With that said, there's still hope. Scientists have identified some regions on the spike protein that stays relatively constant, and they've developed multiple antibodies against them. The idea is that if you target multiple regions at the same time, you can eliminate all strains of the virus.

In an ideal world that would be a perfect opportunity for the two countries to cooperate for the greater good of the world at large. China had a head start on vaccine development for obvious reasons, and the US is an ideal place to conduct phase 3 trials for the reasons listed in the article. The two countries can strike a deal where both production and distribution take place in the two countries first, and co-own the IP of the vaccine.

I hope something like that can be arranged, for all our sakes.

That's not even at phase 1 yet, a long way to becoming a viable vaccine.

 

Just curious, in your opinion, if a vaccine were actually to make it to human trials and be proven to be effective, do you believe that it is possible in the 18 month time frame kicked around in the media, or more likely the 3-5 years that a recent investment research analyst discussed in his note?

 

I think it's possible. The world has never worked so hard to develop a vaccine before, and technology has never been so advanced. There's also no clear scientific obstacle unlike for say the flu or HIV for various reasons. If we can develop immunity to a virus, which we can for all other coronavirus, then I don't see why we can't develop a vaccine for COVID19 in record time with the money and effort we're putting forth. I would hesitate to compare COVID vaccine development to past attempts for other pathogens for these reasons.

 

I am no expert, but this seems like the first real, controlled study that I have seen performed for this drug combination. This is not going to be a "review of records" study.

NIH begins clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat COVID-19

 

Additional results from this effort:

COVID-19: New drug candidates, treatments offer reasons for hope

 

This seems to be too good to be true. It also is quite the boast from the CEO. Not discounting his work, but as others have pointed out to me that anti-body work may not be the be-all, end-all solution. Never the less, seems worth sharing. Strange only Fox News seems to have the story of the main news sites.

California biopharmaceutical company claims coronavirus antibody breakthrough

 

That is incredible news. I wonder if we could get a ton of different labs producing enough to get the antibodies into every at risk person first, then enough for the rest in a timely manner. I also wonder how long they would stay in the body.

 

Agree it sounds too good to be true. I am hopeful but not optimistic.

 

Let’s hope we come up with something soon

 

While not the least bit educated in this area, in talking to a few people who are I continue to post these updates not with the hope and expectation that we have found a quick and easy answer, but rather because small positive results are still better than small negative results.

With that in mind, Moderna release data from their Phase 1 vaccine trial, and talk about your tiny sample sizes. Oh well, still worth sharing in my opinion:

Moderna Announces Positive Interim Phase 1 Data for its mRNA Vaccine (mRNA-1273) Against Novel Coronavirus | Moderna, Inc.