New Treatment Against COVID-19

The new antiviral approach against COVID-19 using gene-silencing RNA technology with lipid nanoparticles to attack the virus' genome directly in the lungs reduces the viral load by 99.9 percent.

Although Traditional antivirals like Tamiflu, zanamivir and remdesivir reduce the symptoms of COVID-19, need for alternative treatment approaches arise in a pandemic.

An international team of scientists, from Australia and the US discovers an experimental direct-acting antiviral therapy against Covid-19 that reduces the viral load by 99.9 percent.

Fluvoxamine: An OCD Drug can Prevent Covid-19 Patients from Hospitalization
Fluvoxamine has been proven among one such drug that could be used to treat COVID-19. Dozens of COVID patients showed no clinical deterioration in their symptoms when treated with a drug, fluvoxamine.

‘Treat COVID-19 patients with siRNA (small-interfering RNA) nanoparticles to improve survival.’

Griffith University and City of Hope designs this treatment approach using gene-silencing RNA technology called siRNA (small-interfering RNA) to attack the virus' genome directly with lipid nanoparticles to deliver directly to lungs.

"Treatment with virus-specific siRNA reduces viral load by 99.9 per cent. These stealth nanoparticles can be delivered to a wide range of lung cells and silence viral genes," said co-lead researcher Nigel McMillan, Professor at Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ) at Griffith.

The findings of the experiment published in the journal Molecular Therapy shows that treating SARS-Cov-2 infected mice with this therapy improves the survival and loss of disease.

Mucormycosis (Black Fungal Disease): A Complication of COVID-19
Mucormycosis is spread by spores from the black fungus, Mycormycetes. It mainly affects people with a weak immune system and attacks the lungs and other organs of the body. It is also known as Black Fungal Disease.

They also discovered that nanoparticles were stable at 4 degrees Celsius for 12 months and at room temperature for greater than one month so that they will be used in low-resource settings to treat infected patients.

"These nanoparticles are scalable and relatively cost-effective to produce in bulk," added Kevin Morris, Professor and associate director of the Centre for Gene Therapy at City of Hope.

Can Covid-19 Virus be Detected in a Second?
Novel sensor system developed helps detect SARS-CoV2, the virus causing Covid-19 infections, within a second. This sensor system can also be used to detect other diseases by altering the type of antibodies attached to the gold surface.

As these siRNA-nanoparticle formulations work on all beta coronaviruses and its variants, so they can be used as a therapy to treat Covid-19 patients in the future.

India Releases Its First Anti-COVID Drug (2-DG) Developed by DRDO
DRDO releases a new drug called 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) that fights against severe SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) infections.

Source-Medindia