Favipiravir flu drug 'clearly effective' in treating COVID-19
According to the multiple news articles the drug favipiravir (sold under the brand name Avigan), developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving 340 patients.
Read more ...
Understanding how COVID-19 affects children vital to slowing pandemic
Though COVID-19 so far appears to be largely sparing children, researchers are cautioning that it is critical to understand how the virus affects kids to model the pandemic accurately, limit the disease's spread and ensure the youngest patients get the care they need.
Read more ...
COVID-19: The immune system can fight back
Melbourne researchers have mapped immune responses from one of Australia's first novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patients, showing the body's ability to fight the virus and recover from the infection.
Researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) - a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne hospital
New kind of CRISPR technology to target RNA, including RNA viruses like coronavirus
CRISPR-based genetic screens have helped scientists identify genes that are key players in sickle-cell anemia, cancer immunotherapy, lung cancer metastasis, and many other diseases. However, these genetic screens are limited in scope: They can only edit or target DNA. For many regions of the human genome, targeting DNA may not be effective, and other organisms, such as RNA viruses like coronavirus or flu, cannot be targeted at all with existing DNA-targeting CRISPR screens.
Read more ...
A world premiere from Erasmus MC and Utrecht University: they found an antibody against COVID-19
Since Thursday evening, the article by a team of ten scientists has been online on BioRxiv - a website where biologists can publish their research before it will be assessed by the prestigious journal Nature. In the summary, the scientists describe an antibody to SARS2, the coronavirus causing the current pandemic (COVID-19). The antibody can help detect and prevent this type of corona infection.
Read more ...
Individual response to COVID-19 'as important' as government action
How individuals respond to government advice on preventing the spread of COVID-19 will be at least as important, if not more important, than government action, according to a new commentary from researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London in the UK, and Utrecht University and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands.
Read more ...
Preventing spread of SARS coronavirus-2 in humans
Several coronaviruses circulate worldwide and constantly infect humans, which normally caused only mild respiratory disease. Currently, however, we are witnessing a worldwide spread of a new coronavirus with more than 90,000 confirmed cases and over 3,000 deaths. The new virus has been named SARS coronavirus-2 and has been transmitted from animals to humans. It causes a respiratory disease called COVID-19 that may take a severe course.
Read more ...