The global community has been reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic. Daily lives and economy of most countries around the world has taken a great hit. Amidst this chaos, Naftali Bennett, the defence minister of Israel, has released a statement that the country’s scientists have been successful in developing an antibody for the novel coronavirus.
Bennett said in a statement that the researchers at the country’s foremost biological research establishment have made a significant breakthrough in developing the antibody and has now moved from the development stage to patent the antibody and mass produce it for on-ground treatment.
A statement from the Prime Minister’s office said that Bennett has already visited the Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) where the antibody is being developed. The antibody research and development is being overseen directly by the Prime Minister’s Office and a mandate has already been released for a vaccine to be developed for the coronavirus.
The statement said that the “antibody that attacks the virus in a monoclonal way and can neutralize it within the bodies of those ill.” The statement also said that the development stage is complete and the institute is now gearing up to patent the antibody.
“In the next stage, researchers will approach international companies to produce the antibody on a commercial scale”, the statement affirmed. Bennett was quoted saying that she is very proud of the staff of IIBR for this “terrific breakthrough” and credited it to be an amazing achievement.
Italian Scientists Claim To Have Found the COVID-19 Vaccine
Apart from Israel, scientists from many other countries all over the world are also trying their best to develop the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. Amongst the many, there is also a team of Italian scientists who have now claimed that they have a vaccine for the coronavirus. The test results generated by the Italian team of researchers shows that the vaccine developed by them contains antibodies that work on human cells. The vaccine was first tested on mice and it now seems to work on humans as well. The firm responsible for developing this vaccine claimed that they are at an advanced stage of testing and might soon start human trials
8 Candidates for Coronavirus Vaccine: WHO
In the meantime, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced 8 candidate vaccines that are being currently evaluated for COVID-19. Moderna Inc., an American biotechnology firm, CanSino Biologics based in China, the University of Oxford, Inovio Pharmaceuticals based in the United States are some of the companies racing towards developing the COVID-19 vaccine.
Apart from these 8 companies, more than 110 vaccine candidates are being evaluated in the preclinical phase. The latest reports show that the experimental vaccine developed by Moderna Inc based in the US has shown early signs of creating an immune response in the human body that can fight the coronavirus. This result came after the vaccine was tried out on a very small sample of human trials during the evaluation phase.
