119 possible vaccines; the virus could travel through the air conditioner; Tocilizumab, another promising drug: three things we learned from the coronavirus this week

In one of the most hectic scientific careers today, hundreds of laboratories are looking for a vaccine for Sars-Cov2. Yes … hundreds. When the crisis began, in a number that was already surprising, there were talk of about 40 projects in search of the desired antidote.

By mid-March, the count of specialized sites already numbered about 70, but this week, the figure rose to 119 initiatives. The best: five of them had even already started the first clinical tests in humans.

One of the most promising is being developed by the U. of Oxford, whose precious experimental doses were transferred to the USA, where they were inoculated in a group of Rhesus macaques, the most human-like apes.

The test was so promising, that all the macaques infected with the virus became ill, except the six to which the experimental vaccine was applied.

The trial was so successful that its creators dared to predict that millions of doses of the vaccine, if it managed to overcome the bureaucratic barriers that this type of product faces, They could be available as early as September.

It’s not the only one. Another handful of experimental injections are also in promising stages., with fairly advanced clinical trials. Today the point seems not to be if scientists were able to find this expected potion, but when.

The warning was made by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC), which in its latest issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases magazine, warned of the strange possibility that air conditioning is capable of transmitting the new coronavirus, after several families in Wuhan, China, have been unusually infected.

Ten people in total fell ill, without having had contact with other people, except that they were all the same day, in a restaurant, where one of the officials was Covid-19 positive. The strange thing is that they were never close to the woman, so the scientists found an unusual suspect for this contagion: the air conditioning.

The investigation claimed that the droplets with Sars Cov2 were able to travel through the air conditioner, being inhaled by diners.

Doctors now believe that devices as common as air conditioning or water could be agents of the virus.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the joints. In its progressive advance, it produces irreversible joint damage.

To combat it, successful immunotherapies have been created to act on the different components that participate in the initiation and perpetuation of the immune response.

One of these drugs is Tolicizumab (TCZ), which scientists have now discovered could serve to fight Covid-19.

The conclusion was described in a preliminary clinical study carried out by scientists from the Public Assistance of Paris Hospitals, who saw how the drug decreases the harmful effects of “Cytokine storm”, which affects between 5% and 10% of Covid-19 patients.

“Prevents hyperactivation of the immune system after virus infection”, Summarized Qué Pasa Olivier Hermine, hematologist at Necker Pediatric Hospital, Imagine Institute of Genetic Diseases, in Paris, France, coordinator of the study, in another medical response that encourages that the global scientific effort to stop the coronavirus will finally pay off.