Workers at UW Medicine’s test drive facility. (AP Photo / Ted S. Warren)
There is good news on the COVID front that involves a drug for people who have already had the disease in Israel, and doctors there have reported fairly dramatic results. Dr. Gordon Cohen, managing director of Mercer Island, joined Morning News of Seattle to discuss what it entails.
‘The good news from Israel is that they had 30 patients who were moderately to severely COVID-19, and that they received a treatment that was developed in Tel Aviv as part of a phase one study … which means was talking about a component of the disease, which is the cytokine storm. ‘It is the body’s response to the virus, and it is this overwhelming immunological response that causes the flooding of the lungs and the inflammation of all the organ systems that often leads to death,’ he said.
Mercer Island MD: How new single-dose vaccine can help us get herd immunity
“In this case, they deliver an inhaled protein – the CD 24 protein to the lungs – and they have found that it dramatically attenuates the cytokine storm that occurs, and actually heals basically 30 out of 30 patients and 29 out of 30 of them inside.” a few days. So it was a pretty dramatic reaction. ”
The treatment is not only inhaling, but it appears at the outset that it has fewer side effects than other COVID treatments.
‘It is inhaled once a day for a few minutes at a time, and they do it for five days and it is aimed directly at the lungs, which is actually the site of the cytokine storm. It really differs from other treatments – which we give to the whole body, which we give systematically – and have many side effects. It does not really have many side effects associated with it, ”said Dr Cohen.
Former WA AG McKenna: Praying ‘within his rights’ on mask, vaccine orders
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 to 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.