news agency
\nbeijing
\nA Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt.
\nThe outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines.
\nA drug being tested by scientists at China\u2019s prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for those infected, but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say.
\nSunney Xie, director of the university\u2019s Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage.
\n\u201cWhen we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500,\u201d said Xie.
\n\u201cThat means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect.\u201d
\nThe drug uses neutralising antibodies — produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells — which Xie\u2019s team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.
\nA study on the team\u2019s research, published Sunday in the scientific journal Cell, suggests that using the antibodies provides a potential \u201ccure\u201d for the disease and shortens recovery time.
\nXie said his team had been working \u201cday and night\u201d searching for the antibody.
\n\u201cOur expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can
\neffectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled.\u201d
\nHe said he hopes that the drug will be ready for use later this year and in time for any potential winter outbreak of the virus, which has infected 4.8 million people around the world and killed more than 315,000.
\n\u201cPlanning for the clinical trial is underway,\u201d said Xie, adding it will be carried out in Australia and other countries since cases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
news agency beijing A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt. The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines. A drug being tested by scientists at China\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n