Coronavirus Breaking News

Hyderabad based Dr. Reddy's Laboratories announced on September 9, 2020, the launch of Redyx, a potential treatment for COVID-19 pneumonia in India. The launch is part of the licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. that grants Dr. Reddy’s rights to register, manufacture and sell Remdesivir, in 127 countries, including India.

In the USA, Remdesivir is known as Veklury.

Recently, the U.S. FDA broadened the scope of Veklury's authorization to include treatment of all hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, irrespective of their severity of the disease, as of August 28, 2020.

The use of non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, is not associated with severe COVID-19 disease or related fatality, according to a study published in PLOS One on September 8, 2020.

These researchers concluded the 'use of NSAIDs was not associated with 30-day mortality, hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, or renal replacement therapy in Danish individuals who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.'

Peoria Illinois based Bradley University announced on September 8, 2020, it is temporarily moving to a remote learning environment and enacting an all-student quarantine for 2-weeks. This means all Bradley students will be required to quarantine in their residence hall, Greek house, St. James apartment, off-campus apartment, or house for the next two weeks, beginning Tuesday, Sept. 8th through 7 a.m. September 23, 2020.

According to Bradley's COVID-19 dashboard, there have been (0) COVID-19 pneumonia-related fatalities, as of September 3, 2020. Bradley has a student enrollment of about 6,000.

Pfizer and BioNTech SE announced on September 9, 2020, that they had concluded talks with the European Commission for a proposed supply of 200 million doses of their investigational BNT162 mRNA-based vaccine candidate that is targeted against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, to European Union (EU) Member States, with an option for purchase an additional 100 million vaccine doses.

The deliveries of the BNT162 vaccine would 'start by the end of 2020, subject to clinical success and regulatory authorization,' stated these companies. If regulatory approval for the BNT162b2 vaccine candidate is received, the European Commission would lead the process for the allocation of the vaccine doses among the 27 EU Member States.

Vaccine doses for Europe would be produced in BioNTech’s German manufacturing sites, as well as in Pfizer’s manufacturing site in located Belgium.

In a late-stage clinical trial, Pfizer and BioNTech are studying a 30µg dose level in a 2-dose regimen among up to 30,000 participants aged 18 to 85 years.

The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is changing, but much more slowly as it spreads, reported Nature on September 8, 2020. But one mutation stands out to various researchers. It was in the gene encoding the spike protein, which helps virus particles to penetrate cells.

At the 614th amino-acid position of the spike protein, the amino acid aspartate (D, in biochemical shorthand) was regularly being replaced by glycine (G) because of a copying fault that altered a single nucleotide in the virus’s 29,903-letter RNA code. Virologists were calling it the D614G mutation.

In the August issue of Cell, Korber et al. found that a SARS-CoV-2 variant in the spike protein D614G rapidly became dominant around the world. Although clinical and in vitro data suggest that D614G changes the virus phenotype, the impact of the mutation on transmission, disease, and vaccine and therapeutic development are largely unknown.

In laboratory tests, “all of us agree that D to G is making the particles more infectious”, stated Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In May 2020, the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, a multi-institutional initiative convened by Harvard Medical School to combat the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth confirmed on September 9, 2020, reports AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine candidate AZD1222 had identified a setback in its phase 3 clinical trials. 1News.info reported Dr. Coatsworth stated the company is "working to expedite the review of the .... single event to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline.

And confirmed the "Australian government is investing in multiple technologies, multiple candidates for a COVID-19 vaccine. We know not all of them will go to market."

A statement from AstraZeneca indicated this type of review is the company's 'standard clinical trial review process', reported local media.