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Coronavirus Australia: Queensland researchers find ‘cure’, want drug trial A team of Australian researchers say they’ve found a cure for the novel coronavirus and hope to have patients enrolled in a nationwide trial by the end of the month. University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research director Professor David Paterson told news.com.au today they have seen two drugs used to treat other conditions wipe out the virus in test tubes. He said one of the medications, given to some of the first people to test positive for COVID-19 in Australia, had already resulted in “disappearance of the virus” and complete recovery from the infection. Prof Paterson, who is also an infectious disease physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, said it wasn’t a stretch to label the drugs “a treatment or a cure”. “It’s a potentially effective treatment,” he said. “Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of therapy.” The drugs are both already registered and available in Australia. “What we want to do at the moment is a large clinical trial across Australia, looking at 50 hospitals, and what we’re going to compare is one drug, versus another drug, versus the combination of the two drugs,” Prof Paterson said. Given their history, researchers have a “long experience of them being very well tolerated” and there are no unexpected side effects. “We’re not on a flat foot, we can sort of move ahead very rapidly with enrolling Australians in this trial,” Prof Paterson said. “It’s the question we all have – we know it’s coming now, what is the best way to treat it?” Prof Paterson said positive experiences in the fight against coronavirus have already been recorded overseas, citing China and Singapore. His research team are confident they can start getting the drugs to patients in a very safe way on home soil. “We want to give Australians the absolute best treatment rather than just someone’s guesses or someone’s anecdotal experiences from a few people,” Prof Paterson told news.com.au. He said they hope to be enrolling patients by the end of March. “And that way, if we can test it in this first wave of patients, we do fully expect that there are going to be ongoing infections for months and months ahead, and therefore we’ll have the best possible information to treat subsequent patients,” Prof Paterson said. “That’s really our aim, to get real world experience in Australia.” He said the trouble with the data coming from China was that it wasn’t really gathered “in a very controlled way”, given they were the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak at the time. “Things were just chaotic,” Prof Paterson said. “There were these emergency hospitals being built and the system really being very, very stretched.” One of the two medications is a HIV drug, which has been superseded by “newer generation” HIV drugs, and the other is an anti-malaria drug called chloroquine which is rarely used and “kept on the shelf now” due to resistance to malaria. He said the researchers want to study them in a “very meaningful way” against the coronavirus to “try and alleviate that anxiety of Australians”. “There have already been patients treated with these in Australia and there’s been successful outcomes but it hasn’t been done in a controlled or a comparative way,” Prof Paterson said. The drugs would be given orally, as tablets. Prof Paterson said patients would be asked to participate “as soon as they’re admitted” to hospital with the aim of beginning treatment “very early on in their illness”. He said the research was sparked by Chinese patients, who were first given the drug in Australia, showing their doctors information on the internet about the treatment used overseas. “Our doctors were very, very surprised that a HIV drug could actually work against the novel coronavirus and there was a bit of scepticism,” he said. “That first wave of Chinese patients we had (in Australia), they all did very, very well when they were treated with the HIV drug. “That’s reassuring … that we’re onto something really good here.” The RBWH Foundation has established a Coronavirus Action Fund. By Monday afternoon it had raised $30,000 of the desired $750,000 for the clinical drug trials and other related medical research. “The trials will start as soon as funding is secured,” the fund states. When asked why they had to put a call out money, Prof Paterson said they “want to give as many people in Australia access to this” and can’t take doctors away from their normal work. “The reality is that doctors are going to need to be concentrating on their patients and we need to get a very strong research team across Australia that can make sure that all the Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed and make sure that it is a really high-quality study so that we can be really confident in the results,” he said. “We did this with bushfires, this is an example where we’re reaching out to the public to put the financial support behind the study so it can get underway. “Fifty hospitals have expressed interest in participating and we expect there may even be more to come.” Source

Coronavirus Italy: Man recovers from COVID-19 using drug designed for ebola There are hopes that an experimental drug initially designed to treat ebola could cure patients of coronavirus, after a 79-year-old Italian man who had tested positive to COVID-19 was given the all-clear following treatment. The man was cleared on Tuesday, the President of Italy’s Liguria region Giovanni Toti said, after taking the drug remdesivir. Mr Toti described it as the “first real case of coronavirus cured”, according to The Telegraph. Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral developed by US drug firm Gilead was originally designed to treat ebola in a Scottish nurse when she suffered a relapse 18 months after being cleared of the disease, contracted while volunteering in Sierra Leone. A drug initially designed to treat ebola could be successful in curing the coronavirus. Picture: Jessica Hill/APSource:AP Now, the drug is being tested in five coronavirus clinical trials – including by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on 13 patients who were hospitalised after contracting coronavirus on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. While it’s far from a confirmed cure, it raises hope that drugs can eventually be used to treat the coronavirus – which has now infected close to a quarter of a million people around the world. The virus outbreak in Italy has now become the world’s deadliest, killing more than 3400 people. Redemsivir also showed success in the treatment of monkeys infected with MERs, a different type of coronavirus. Around the globe, medical experts are racing to find a cure for COVID-19. In the US, clinical trials on a vaccine have begun, with President Donald Trump announcing on Friday that two drugs could be a “game changer” in treating coronavirus and will be made available “almost immediately” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). During a briefing with the coronavirus taskforce at the White House, the US President said the antimalarial drugs – hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine – would soon be available for “prescribed use”. “It’s been around for a long time, so we know if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody,” he said, adding that the early results had been “encouraging”. “We have to remove every barrier or a lot of barriers that were unnecessary and they’ve done that to get the rapid deployment of safe, effective treatments and we think we have some good answers. “This could be a tremendous breakthrough.” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told reporters he had “great hope for how we are going to come out of this situation”. “What’s important is not to provide falsehood, but provide hope,” he said. Closer to home, in Queensland researchers believe they’re close – if not already there – to finding a cure, and are now chasing funding to begin clinical trials. University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research director Professor David Paterson told news.com.au they have seen two drugs used to treat other conditions wipe out the virus in test tubes. He said one of the medications, given to some of the first people to test positive for COVID-19 in Australia, had already resulted in “disappearance of the virus” and complete recovery from the infection. Prof Paterson, who is also an infectious disease physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, said it wasn’t a stretch to label the drugs “a treatment or a cure”. “It’s a potentially effective treatment,” he said. “Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of therapy.” Source

Now that not one but seven Chinese cities - including Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic - and collectively housing some 23 million people, are under quarantine... ... comparisons to the infamous Raccoon City from Resident Evil are coming in hot and heavy. And, since reality often tends to imitate if not art then certainly Hollywood, earlier today we jokingly asked if the Medical Research Institute at Wuhan University would end up being China's version of Umbrella Corp. As it turns out, it wasn't a joke, because moments ago it was brought to our attention that in February 2017, Nature penned an extensive profile of what it called the "Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens." The location of this BSL-4 rated lab? Why, Wuhan. A quick read of what this lab was meant to do, prompts the immediate question whether the coronavirus epidemic isn't a weaponized virus that just happened to escape the lab: The Wuhan lab cost 300 million yuan (US$44 million), and to allay safety concerns it was built far above the flood plain and with the capacity to withstand a magnitude-7 earthquake, although the area has no history of strong earthquakes. It will focus on the control of emerging diseases, store purified viruses and act as a World Health Organization ‘reference laboratory’ linked to similar labs around the world. “It will be a key node in the global biosafety-lab network,” says lab director Yuan Zhiming. The Chinese Academy of Sciences approved the construction of a BSL-4 laboratory in 2003, and the epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) around the same time lent the project momentum. The lab was designed and constructed with French assistance as part of a 2004 cooperative agreement on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. But the complexity of the project, China’s lack of experience, difficulty in maintaining funding and long government approval procedures meant that construction wasn’t finished until the end of 2014. The lab’s first project will be to study the BSL-3 pathogen that causes Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever: a deadly tick-borne virus that affects livestock across the world, including in northwest China, and that can jump to people. Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab, before moving on to Ebola and the West African Lassa virus, What does BSL-4 mean? BSL-4 is the highest level of biocontainment: its criteria include filtering air and treating water and waste before they leave the laboratory, and stipulating that researchers change clothes and shower before and after using lab facilities. Such labs are often controversial. The first BSL-4 lab in Japan was built in 1981, but operated with lower-risk pathogens until 2015, when safety concerns were finally overcome. And here's why all this is an issue: Worries surround the Chinese lab. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Below we repost the full Nature article because it strongly hints, without evidence for now, that the coronavirus epidemic may well have been a weaponized virus which "accidentally" escaped the Wuhan biohazard facility. NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens. The move is part of a plan to build between five and seven biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated much excitement, as well as some concerns. Hazard suits hang at the National Bio-safety Laboratory, Wuhan, the first lab on the Chinese mainland equipped for the highest level of biocontainment. Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with the world’s greatest biological threats. “It will offer more opportunities for Chinese researchers, and our contribution on the BSL‑4-level pathogens will benefit the world,” says George Gao, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology in Beijing. There are already two BSL-4 labs in Taiwan, but the National Bio-safety Laboratory, Wuhan, would be the first on the Chinese mainland. The lab was certified as meeting the standards and criteria of BSL-4 by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) in January. The CNAS examined the lab’s infrastructure, equipment and management, says a CNAS representative, paving the way for the Ministry of Health to give its approval. A representative from the ministry says it will move slowly and cautiously; if the assessment goes smoothly, it could approve the laboratory by the end of June. BSL-4 is the highest level of biocontainment: its criteria include filtering air and treating water and waste before they leave the laboratory, and stipulating that researchers change clothes and shower before and after using lab facilities. Such labs are often controversial. The first BSL-4 lab in Japan was built in 1981, but operated with lower-risk pathogens until 2015, when safety concerns were finally overcome. The expansion of BSL-4-lab networks in the United States and Europe over the past 15 years — with more than a dozen now in operation or under construction in each region — also met with resistance, including questions about the need for so many facilities. The Wuhan lab cost 300 million yuan (US$44 million), and to allay safety concerns it was built far above the flood plain and with the capacity to withstand a magnitude-7 earthquake, although the area has no history of strong earthquakes. It will focus on the control of emerging diseases, store purified viruses and act as a World Health Organization ‘reference laboratory’ linked to similar labs around the world. “It will be a key node in the global biosafety-lab network,” says lab director Yuan Zhiming. The Chinese Academy of Sciences approved the construction of a BSL-4 laboratory in 2003, and the epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) around the same time lent the project momentum. The lab was designed and constructed with French assistance as part of a 2004 cooperative agreement on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. But the complexity of the project, China’s lack of experience, difficulty in maintaining funding and long government approval procedures meant that construction wasn’t finished until the end of 2014. The lab’s first project will be to study the BSL-3 pathogen that causes Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever: a deadly tick-borne virus that affects livestock across the world, including in northwest China, and that can jump to people. Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab, before moving on to Ebola and the West African Lassa virus, which do. Some one million Chinese people work in Africa; the country needs to be ready for any eventuality, says Yuan. “Viruses don’t know borders.” Gao travelled to Sierra Leone during the recent Ebola outbreak, allowing his team to report the speed with which the virus mutated into new strains. The Wuhan lab will give his group a chance to study how such viruses cause disease, and to develop treatments based on antibodies and small molecules, he says. The opportunities for international collaboration, meanwhile, will aid the genetic analysis and epidemiology of emergent diseases. “The world is facing more new emerging viruses, and we need more contribution from China,” says Gao. In particular, the emergence of zoonotic viruses — those that jump to humans from animals, such as SARS or Ebola — is a concern, says Bruno Lina, director of the VirPath virology lab in Lyon, France. Many staff from the Wuhan lab have been training at a BSL-4 lab in Lyon, which some scientists find reassuring. And the facility has already carried out a test-run using a low-risk virus. But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says. Yuan says that he has worked to address this issue with staff. “We tell them the most important thing is that they report what they have or haven’t done,” he says. And the lab’s inter­national collaborations will increase openness. “Transparency is the basis of the lab,” he adds. The plan to expand into a network heightens such concerns. One BSL-4 lab in Harbin is already awaiting accreditation; the next two are expected to be in Beijing and Kunming, the latter focused on using monkey models to study disease. Lina says that China’s size justifies this scale, and that the opportunity to combine BSL-4 research with an abundance of research monkeys — Chinese researchers face less red tape than those in the West when it comes to research on primates — could be powerful. “If you want to test vaccines or antivirals, you need a non-human primate model,” says Lina. But Ebright is not convinced of the need for more than one BSL-4 lab in mainland China. He suspects that the expansion there is a reaction to the networks in the United States and Europe, which he says are also unwarranted. He adds that governments will assume that such excess capacity is for the potential development of bioweapons. “These facilities are inherently dual use,” he says. The prospect of ramping up opportunities to inject monkeys with pathogens also worries, rather than excites, him: “They can run, they can scratch, they can bite.” The central monitor room at China’s National Bio-safety Laboratory If that wasn't enough, here is January 2018 press release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, announcing the launch of the "top-level biosafety lab." China has put its first level-four biosafety laboratory into operation, capable of conducting experiments with highly pathogenic microorganisms that can cause fatal diseases, according to the national health authority. Level four is the highest biosafety level, used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens that can cause fatal diseases, including the Ebola virus. The Wuhan national level-four biosafety lab recently passed an assessment organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, according to a news release on Friday from the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Virologists read data on a container for viral samples at China's first level-four biosafety lab at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan After evaluating such things as the lab's management of personnel, facilities, animals, disposals and viruses, experts believed the lab is qualified to carry out experiments on highly pathogenic microorganisms that can cause fatal diseases, such as Marburg, Variola, Nipah and Ebola. "The lab provides a complete, world-leading biosafety system. This means Chinese scientists can study the most dangerous pathogenic microorganisms in their own lab," the Wuhan institute said. It will serve as the country's research and development center on prevention and control of infectious diseases, as a pathogen collection center and as the United Nations' reference laboratory for infectious diseases, the institute said. Previous media reports said the Wuhan P4 lab will be open to scientists from home and abroad. Scientists can conduct research on anti-virus drugs and vaccines in the lab. The lab is part of Sino-French cooperation in the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases, according to the news release. The central government approved the P4 laboratory in 2003 when the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome spread alarm across the country. In October 2004, China signed a cooperation agreement with France on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. This was followed by a succession of supplementary agreements. With French assistance in laboratory design, biosafety standards establishment and personnel training, construction began in 2011 and lasted for three years. In 2015, the lab was put into trial operation. Source

Only one lab in China can safely handle the new coronavirus (Image: © CC2.0 Flickr/davidmartindavies ) As an escalating viral outbreak unfolds in China, only one lab in the country meets the required biosafety standards needed to study the new disease. The lab happens to sit in the center of Wuhan, the city where the newly identified coronavirus first appeared, according to the Hindustan Times, an Indian news outlet. The facility, known as the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, is housed within the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was specifically designed to help Chinese scientists "prepare for and respond to future infectious disease outbreaks," according to a 2019 report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Chinese government moved to construct such a lab following the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic, during which more than 8,000 people caught the infection and more than 750 died worldwide, according to the CDC. Laboratories that handle pathogens receive a rating of 1 to 4, depending on what class of microbe they can feasibly contain, with 1 representing the lowest risk and 4 representing the highest risk. Designated at Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4), the Wuhan lab can hold the world's most dangerous pathogens at maximum biocontainment levels. Related: 27 Devastating Infectious Diseases All researchers in a BSL-4 lab must change their clothing upon entering the facility, shower upon exiting and decontaminate all of the materials used during experimentation, according to the CDC. Lab members wear full-body, pressurized suits to isolate themselves from the surrounding environment. The lab itself must be held in a separate building or an isolated wing within the surrounding university and must be supplied with its own air filtration and decontamination systems. BSL-4 labs are built to contain infectious agents such as the Ebola, Nipah and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses, all of which are highly transmissible and frequently fatal diseases. Although China intends to build five to seven high-containment laboratories by 2025, as of now, only the Wuhan lab can currently contain pathogens of this nature, according to the 2019 CDC report. Chinese health officials have classified the new coronavirus as a Class B infectious disease, placing the illness in the same category as SARS and HIV/AIDS, The Washington Post reported. However, the Chinese government announced that it will institute Class A controls — which are usually reserved for more dangerous diseases, like cholera and the plague — in an attempt to contain the outbreak. Reports of the first infection of this coronavirus in a U.S. citizen, a man in Washington state, have already prompted Chinese health authorities to place Wuhan under quasi-quarantine, meaning that movement to and from the region is now under tight control. Authorities may forcibly quarantine individuals known or suspected to be infected with the virus and will inform the public of each new case identified in China, according to The Washington Post. More than 400 people have contracted the new coronavirus in China so far, along with others in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S. China's supply of surgical masks is running low, and many travelers have canceled their plans for the upcoming Lunar New Year because of fears of becoming infected, the South China Morning Post reported. Only time will tell how and when the outbreak will be quelled and whether the outbreak presents any substantial threat to global health. Source