A recent study from the Netherlands found that the COVID-19 antibodies, components of many vaccines being created, may actually not work for the treatment after Dutch researchers tested them in ICU patients. Reddit is abuzz with this discovery, knowing that the world is looking for a cure to the pandemic.
According to the research, scientists from the continent found that the antibodies the immune system generates may not help in the cure, but instead, cause severe harm and even kill patients.
As of press time, there are several more vaccines being offered in the health industry claiming to cure the virus. Moderna is one of them. However, many of these are still seeking approval from the World Health Organization.
Immunoglobulin
In the study, the Immunoglobulin G (IgG), a fork-shaped molecule that adaptive human immune cells produce, is noted to intercept the virus. Each type of immunoglobulin may target specific pathogens, such as IgG, for the common cold virus.
However, the immunoglobulin for Sars-CoV-2, the other name of COVID-19, does it differently. They bind with the distinctive spike protein of the virus to reduce the chances of human cell infections. These usually happen a week or so after the onset of the diseases or when the symptoms worsen.
The research took place at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and was spearheaded by Professor Menno de Winther, the South China Morning Post reported.
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"The scientists found that the blood from Covid-19 patients struggling for their life on ventilators was highly inflammatory. During a series of experiments, they observed that it could trigger an overreaction of the immune system, destroy crucial barriers in tissues and cause water and blood to spill over in the lungs," Beijing correspondent Stephen Cheng indicated.
COVID-19
Right now, cases are continuing to increase in various countries despite developments, for instance, in Thailand, where it is recently reported that the country is now free of the pandemic, after not seeing any new cases in the previous days.
Worldwide, there are now more than 13 million people infected with the virus, and with almost 600,000 deaths, it is becoming subtly alarming. However, several people have already recovered.
Measures are expected not to get changed in the next few hours, and locations will most probably remain under quarantine and lockdown. The world may be far from achieving total containment of the virus, and before businesses and way of life return to normal.
In other news, Moderna, the leading vaccine out of many that were proposed, is showing a good outlook in the initial tests and trials. Time reported that the patients who received the dosage did not show any side effects.
Moderna Therapeutics is based in Massachusetts and is the manufacturer behind Moderna vaccine. This was developed alongside researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
