 |
| Chinese scientists are said to find a way to treat corona virus (Foto: Astroboys2019 via Bored Panda) |
Scientists in China are said to have found a way to treat the latest corona virus outbreak that began in Wuhan.
A senior medical officer in China is calling for people who have recovered from coronavirus to donate their blood plasma because it is likely this will contain a protein that can be used to treat sick patients.
The search for drugs that can treat or cure this virus has indeed frustrated researchers, because infection and death rates continue to rise. The government also prescribes a combination of antiviral drugs and traditional Chinese medicine.
But on Thursday, the National China Biotec Group, a state-owned company under the Ministry of Health, said that administering a series of human antibodies that survived COVID-19 to more than 10 critically ill patients could significantly reduce inflammation levels after 12-24 hour of care.
The experts also gave various comments on this matter. Although this approach is considered a logical and promising way to treat seriously ill corona virus patients, due to the low mortality rate, doctors must also be on the lookout for possible side effects.
As an illustration, people who have just recovered from the corona virus still have antibodies to the virus that circulate in their blood. Injecting antibodies to a sick patient could theoretically help patients fight infections better.
In other words, this treatment will transfer the recovered patient's immunity to the sick patient. This is an approach that has been used previously in the flu pandemic, Benjamin Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at Hong Kong University, told the Times.
"I am pleased to know that the plasma of the survivors is being tested," said Carol Shoshkes Reiss, a professor of biology and neuroscience at New York University. One note, doctors need to control for possible effects of the treatment, Reiss told Live Science as quoted Saturday (02/15/2020).
However, not everyone agrees on this matter. Dr. Eric Cioe-Peña, Director of Global Health at Northwell Health in New York said that although this is a good idea, careful consideration needs to be done before doing so.
"I think we need to go through the scientific process to continue and try to study this proposed treatment before applying it, especially in viruses that have a low mortality rate," he said.