Chinese scientists confident antibody therapy will help treat and prevent severe Covid-19
- Researchers say the treatment can neutralise most coronavirus variants and proved effective in mice and macaques
- Therapy is based on two antibodies taken from recovered patients, which stop the coronavirus binding to cells
Chinese scientists said they have developed an antibody therapy to treat and prevent severe Covid-19 which has been shown to be effective in animals.
They said the treatment “retains neutralising ability to most Sars-CoV-2 variants of concern, with more potent neutralising activity against the Delta variant”.
The team, from institutes including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Capital Medical University and China’s Centre for Disease Control, published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Immunology on Tuesday.
The treatment adopts a dual-targeting strategy that “can target two different antigen-binding sites with one molecule” and is widely used to treat cancer and inflammatory disorders and sometimes viral diseases.
They said experiments showed that the treatment “effectively protects” mice and rhesus macaques from infection, adding that treated animals showed lower viral loads in throat and nasal swabs.
The team said the treatment does not trigger a process known as antibody-dependent enhancement, which increases the risk of exacerbating viral diseases and is a common concern with antibody-based vaccines.