Australian Scientists Talk about Breakthrough in COVID-19 Fight
Australian researchers from Queensland have made a huge breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19 – they have found an innovative way to kill 99.9% of the virus in the lungs of people.
Antiviral therapy, which kills 99.9% of COVID-19 particles in the lungs, could be a breakthrough way to fight the coronavirus.
According to the Daily Mail, the “next generation” technology works like a “heat-seeking missile” that detects coronavirus particles and attacks them. It was developed by an international team of scientists from the Australian Menzies Institute of Health in Queensland at Griffith University.
Study co-lead author Professor Nigel Macmillan of the Menzies Institute of Health in Queensland said this innovative treatment prevents the virus from replicating and could even end COVID-related deaths worldwide. “This is essentially a search and destroy mission,” he said. “We can target a virus that grows in someone’s lungs.”
This way of fighting the coronavirus works using a medical technology called gene suppression, which was first discovered in Australia in the 1990s.
Gene suppression uses RNA – fundamental building blocks in the body similar to DNA – to fight respiratory disease.
“This technology works with small pieces of RNA that can bind specifically to the genome of the virus,” said Professor Macmillan. “This binding makes the genome no longer work and actually causes the cells to destroy it.”
While there have been other antiviral drugs such as Zanamivir and Remdesivir that have reduced symptoms and allowed coronavirus patients to recover faster, the Daily Mail claims this is the first treatment to directly stop the virus. The drug must be delivered into the bloodstream by injection in the form of a so-called “nanoparticle”.
“These nanoparticles enter the lungs and fuse with the RNA delivery cells,” explains Professor Macmillan. “RNA looks for a virus and destroys its genome, so the virus can no longer replicate.”
Scientists have been working on this technology since April last year, when a nationwide six-week lockdown was introduced in Australia.
Since the virus first appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, there have been more than 165 million coronavirus cases worldwide, including 3.4 million deaths.
The Griffith University treatment is currently entering the next phase of clinical trials and is expected to be available for use by 2023.
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