Breakthrough drug might cure COVID-19 in just five days [View all]

[iluvtennis]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/breakthrough-drug-might-cure-covid-in-just-five-days/ar-BB1ds8Rk

* Researchers from Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center developed a coronavirus therapy that was found to cure COVID-19 in 3-5 days in most volunteers who received the drug.

* EXO-CD24 is a medication delivered directly to the lungs, where it’ll help prevent the immune system dealing with COVID-19 from overreacting and causing complications.

* The drug is administered once a day for five minutes via inhalation. In Phase 1 trials, 29 out of 30 people suffering from moderate to severe COVID-19 recovered within 3-5 days, and all of them survived.

It’s too early to call it a miracle cure, but if the conclusions from a recent Phase 1 trial for a new drug called EXO-C24 are backed up in subsequent trials, we might have the first true breakthrough therapy for COVID-19.

That’s in addition to coronavirus vaccines, of course, which will help prevent severe COVID-19 cases and deaths, and even reduce the spread of the illness. But while vaccines can give the immune system a heads-up to the threat it might have to deal with — the real virus — they have a few limitations. First of all, they don’t work on infected people. Secondly, vaccine supply is still limited and vaccinations aren’t available to anybody who might want one. Then there’s the threat of coronavirus mutations that might reduce vaccines’ effect on the virus and extend the pandemic.

But if EXO-C24 can indeed help most coronavirus patients recover within five days, then the drug would not just save more lives. It would also complement vaccines and help address mutations. The drug is meant to calm the immune response that can be deadly in COVID-19 — the so-called cytokine storms — and should have the same effect regardless of how SARS-CoV-2 evolves.

...short article, no more at link

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Wow. Let's keep our eyes on the trials to see if this drug can be another tool in the kit to fight CV-19.