New Covid therapy kills 99.9% of virus in lungs – but it won’t be ready until 2023 – World News

Scientists have developed a potentially ground-breaking new treatment that kills off 99.9 per cent of Covid in mice.

Researchers said the use of the ‘stealth nanoparticles’ help reduce in rodent’s lungs the viral load of the disease that has ravaged across the globe for over a year.

The team said that the findings could help treat infected patients in ‘low-resource settings’ and that mass production would be ‘relatively cost effective.’

But scientists said that no human trials have been conducted and they don’t expect a rollout for a couple of years.

The team of researchers who carried out the work were from Australia’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland at Griffith University and from City of Hope, a research and treatment centre for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases in the US.

They said they had successfully developed an ‘experimental direct-acting antiviral therapy to treat Covid.’

Professor Kevin Morris , co-lead researcher said: “This treatment is designed to work on all betacoronaviruses such as the original SARS virus (SARS-CoV-1) as well as SARS-CoV-2 and any new variants that may arise in the future because it targets ultra-conserved regions in the virus’ genome.

“We have also shown that these nanoparticles are stable at 4°C for 12 months and at room temperature for greater than one month, meaning this agent could be used in low-resource settings to treat infected patients.

“These nanoparticles are scalable and relatively cost-effective to produce in bulk.”

The scientists used gene-silencing RNA technology called siRNA (small-interfering RNA) to attack the virus genome directly, which stops it from replicating.

They also used ‘lipid nanoparticles’ designed at Griffith University and City of Hope to deliver the siRNA to the lungs, a critical site of the infection.

“Treatment with virus-specific siRNA reduces viral load by 99.9 per cent” Professor McMillan added.

“These stealth nanoparticles can be delivered to a wide range of lung cells and silence viral genes.”

The team have reportedly only tested the therapy on mice but said it has been designed for people who are already severely ill with Covid.

The researchers said they were confident ‘normal cells are completely unharmed by this treatment’.

They hope it will be ready for a rollout by 2023.

The research has been published in Molecular Therapy.