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Pharma News

Zydus seeks DCGI nod for clinical trial for monoclonal antibodies cocktail

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

Zydus has announced biological therapy ZRC-3308, used to treat mild COVID-19. The pharmaceutical company now seeks DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) nod to undertake clinical trials for monoclonal antibodies cocktail that can neutralise Covid infection.

In a statement, Dr Sharvil Patel, Managing Director of Cadila Healthcare Limited, said they believe that ‘biological therapy’ ZRC-3308 – ‘a cocktail of two SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs)’, has the potential to address concerns abut the progression of the disease.

In a press release, the pharmaceutical company said the ZRC-3308 is designed to have a “long half-life providing protection for a long period of time” and has “reduced immune-effector to minimize potential tissue-damaging side effects of virus neutralising monoclonal antibodies thereby providing a safer product.”

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coronavirus variants
Covid News and UpdatesNational & International News

NCDC director says UK variant may be the cause of second wave

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) director, Sujeet Singh on Friday stated that the current wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Delhi could have been fuelled by the UK variant as its prevalence in genomes sequenced nearly doubled from the second to the last week of March.

Speaking at a webinar, ‘Genome Sequencing of SARS-CoV-19’, Singh said the UK variant of coronavirus is also dominant in Punjab. In Delhi, there are primarily two types of variants — B.1.617 and the UK strain — found in the genome sequenced samples, the NCDC director said.

“If we try to co-relate, the surge we are observing in Delhi, it directly co-relates to the type of variant which we are observing,” he said.

So far, Singh said, 15,133 samples have been sequenced by INSACOG, a consortium formed in December last year to increase viral genomic surveillance in order to understand the spread of the coronavirus in a rapid and robust manner.

The B.1.617 variant of coronavirus is also known as the double mutant strain.

The UK variant was found in 28 per cent of samples in the second week of March. In the last week of the month, 50 per cent of samples had this variant, Singh said.

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covaxin
Covid News and Updates

COVAXIN shows 100% efficacy against COVID-19

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

COVAXIN shows 78% clinical and 100% efficacy against severe COVID-19

The COVAXIN developed and manufactured by Bharat Biotech, “neutralizes multiple variants of SARS-COV-2 and effectively neutralises the double mutant strain as well,” the ICMR statement. 

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research on Wednesday said Covaxin has shown an overall interim clinical efficacy of 78% and a 100% efficacy against severe Covid-19 disease. The efficacy was announced on the basis of a second interim analysis after more than 87 symptomatic cases of Covid-19 were reported among the Phase 3 trials volunteers of Covaxin.

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covid vaccination
Covid News and Updates

Three Common Antiviral Drugs Potentially Effective Against COVID-19

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

A team of researchers has found that three commonly used antiviral and antimalarial drugs are effective at preventing reproduction of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The researchers were looking for compounds that could block the entry of the virus into the cell.

The study looked at three antiviral drugs that have been effective against Ebola and the Marburg virus: tilorone, quinacrine, and pyronaridine. They chose these compounds because the researchers knew that other antivirals which successfully act against Ebola are also effective inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers utilized a variety of cell lines that represented potential targets for SARS-CoV-2 infection in the human body. They infected the cell lines with the different viruses and then looked at how well the compounds prevented viral replication in the cells.

The team found that the results were mixed, with the compounds’ effectiveness depending upon whether they were used in human-derived cell lines or monkey-derived cell lines, known as ‘Vero cell lines’.

“In the human-derived cell lines, we found that all three compounds worked similarly to Remdesivir, which is currently being used to treat COVID-19,” the researchers said.

The next steps for the research include testing the compounds’ effectiveness in a mouse model and working on understanding how they inhibit viral replication.

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covid-19 virus
Covid News and Updates

Maha reports Daily surge above 28,000

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

Five States of Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat are reporting a surge in the COVID daily new cases. These states account for 77.44% of the new cases.

47,262 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours.

Six states cumulatively account for 81.65% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours. Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 28,699. It is followed by Punjab with 2,254 while Karnataka reported 2,010 new cases.

275 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

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covid mutation
Covid News and Updates

Sequencing in Sars-Cov2 may help monitor evolution of mutants: Study

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma

The last month of the year 2020 began with worrying news regarding new variants of SARS-CoV-2 that show increased transmissibility, first identified in the UK and S. Africa. Recent reports from South Africa mention concerns regarding lineage B.1.351 which has a mutation in the RBD of the Spike protein (N501Y) which may be associated with faster transmission and possible adverse illness in young and healthy individuals.

A study conducted on 200 samples identified 4 novel genetic variants and 89 variants that were exclusive to Kerala and not present in other parts of the country.

The mutation landscape of SARS-CoV-2 has been under constant global scrutiny to understand the effect of these changes on the infectivity and antigenicity of the virus. While most mutations are of little to no consequence, sometimes the virus acquires a mutation that gives it an advantage over other strains. The Spike protein is used by the virus to enter human cells via the ACE2 receptor. Thus, Spike mutations can potentially facilitate better affinity or binding and enable easier entry into the host cell, as seen in the case of the D614G mutation described in the preceding section. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) in the spike protein is the most variable part of the coronavirus genome. Mutations can putatively also render the virus resistant to neutralization by host antibodies and thus need to be identified and monitored for the efficacy of antibody therapeutics.

Genomic studies can aid in the identification of the origin of the virus and possible sources of transmission to humans. Zoonoses are infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans and can evolve to become efficiently transmissible human-to-human infections such as malaria, SARS, HIV, pandemic influenzas and, most recently, COVID-19. Transmission of the causative pathogens from animals to humans and livestock can be via many routes such as infected meat (wet markets, wildlife trade, contaminated feed), direct contact with the pathogen (carcasses, fresh meat), contamination of water and produce, as well as air-borne and vector-borne (mosquitoes, ticks, rodents) routes.

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Covid News and Updates

Study: RNA analysis shows most SARS-Cov2 variants rarely persist through secondary transmission

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma
sarscov2covi

A large team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across the U.K. has found that most SARS-CoV-2 variants rarely persist through secondary transmissions. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group the RNA sequencing of nearly 1,400 nasal swabs from patients between March and June of last year, and what they found by doing so.

As the global pandemic has progressed, attention has turned to variants of the virus that infect people with COVID-19. A growing fear is that some of the new variants will prove to be immune to the vaccines that are being given to combat the original form of the virus, setting off a whole new pandemic. This new effort was conducted late last year, before most of the new variants had made their way into news headlines. The researchers sought to better understand the danger posed by these SARS-CoV-2 variants. More specifically, they wanted to know more about how frequently they arise and how easily they can spread.

The work by the team involved obtaining 1,313 nasal swabs collected from infected people in the U.K. between March and June of last year—most of whom exhibited symptoms of COVID-19. Each of the samples was then subjected to RNA sequencing to identify variants.

The researchers found that most of the infected people had only one or two variants, most of which were not able to survive transmission to other people. They did find that a few of those infected had variants that could survive transmission, though they found very few instances of them transmitted between households.

The researchers suggest their findings indicate that, at least during early infection, mutations that are able to survive attacks by antibodies are quite rare. That being said, they did find evidence of variants whose mutations gave them a better chance of surviving an immune response. Such mutations, they note, would be more likely to spread as vaccine use becomes more widespread. They suggest that monitoring will have to be stepped up to quickly identify variants that may not be weakened by current vaccines.

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Covid News and Updates

Covid Diagnosis now on your phone

by Vaishali Sharma
written by Vaishali Sharma
covid

According to the engineers of Rice University, Covid-19 can now be detected in 55 minutes or less with the help of programmed magnetic nanobeads and a diagnostic tool that plugs into an off-the-shelf cell phone and the results will be delivered into the phone.

The Rice lab of mechanical engineer Peter Lillehoj has developed a stamp-sized microfluidic chip that measures the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein in blood serum from a standard finger prick. The nanobeads bind to SARS-CoV-2 N protein, a biomarker for COVID-19, in the chip and transport it to an electrochemical sensor that detects minute amounts of the biomarker.

Lillehoj said, “What’s great about this device is that it doesn’t require a laboratory. You can perform the entire test and generate the result at the collection site, health clinic or even a pharmacy. The entire system is easily transportable and easy to use.”

The new tool relies on a slightly more complex detection scheme but delivers accurate, quantitative results in a short amount of time. To test the device, the lab relied on donated serum samples from people who were healthy and others who were COVID-19-positive.

The new tool relies on a slightly more complex detection scheme but delivers accurate, quantitative results in a short amount of time. To test the device, the lab relied on donated serum samples from people who were healthy and others who were COVID-19-positive.

A capillary tube is used to deliver the sample to the chip, which is then placed on a magnet that pulls the beads toward an electrochemical sensor coated with capture antibodies. The beads bind to the capture antibodies and generate a current proportional to the concentration of biomarker in the sample.

The potentiostat reads that current and sends a signal to its phone app. If there are no COVID-19 biomarkers, the beads do not bind to the sensor and get washed away inside the chip.

Lillehoj said it would not be difficult for industry to manufacture the microfluidic chips or to adapt them to new COVID-19 strains if and when that becomes necessary.

The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Rice University COVID-19 Research Fund supported the research.

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