Australian researchers yesterday said they have mapped immune responses from one of the country’s first COVID-19 patients, findings that Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt has said are a crucial first step in developing a vaccine and treatment.
While the bulk of those infected experience only mild symptoms, it is severe or critical in 20 percent of patients. The virus has been fatal in about 1 percent of reported cases.
As scientists scramble to develop a vaccine, researchers at Australia’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity said they have taken an important step in understanding the virus.
By examining the blood results from an unidentified woman in her 40s, they discovered that the immune system responds to the coronavirus in the same way that it typically fights the flu.
The findings would help scientists understand why some patients recover, while others develop more serious respiratory problems, the researchers said.
“People can use our methods to understand the immune responses in larger COVID-19 cohorts and also to understand what’s lacking in those who have fatal outcomes,” University of Melbourne microbiology and immunology professor Katherine Kedzierska said.
As researchers monitored the Australian patient’s immune response, they could accurately predict when she would recover, which she ended up doing.
The research is a major development, Hunt said.
“It’s about fast-tracking a vaccine by identifying which candidates are most likely to be successful,” Hunt told reporters. “It’s also about fast-tracking potential therapies and treatments for patients who already have coronavirus.”
At least a dozen pharmaceutical companies around the world are working on vaccines or antiviral, and other treatments for the fast-spreading contagion.
However, investment costs for vaccines could run as high as US$800 million in a process that, even if accelerated, is likely to take more than a year until approval, executives of companies involved in the effort said.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of
RSS