Drug candidate identified with AI to be tested in Covid-19 clinical trials
HealthScience

Drug candidate identified with AI to be tested in Covid-19 clinical trials

From heart damage in recovered patients to alternative tests, ThePrint brings you the latest research on Covid-19.

   
Lab technicians produce Covid-19 diagnostic kits in a laboratory in Faridabad

Representational image | T Narayan | Bloomberg

New Delhi: Over six months into the pandemic, researchers are still working to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the impact the coronavirus infection has on our bodies.

Here are some of the latest research findings on the Covid-19 front.

Covid-19 clinical trials planned for drug candidate identified using AI

Scientists in the US are set to launch a clinical trial of a drug that was identified as potential treatment for Covid-19 using artificial intelligence.

Preliminary research shows that the drug, known as LAM-002A (apilimod), can block cellular entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

LAM-002A has already proven to be safe in previous clinical trials for the treatment for autoimmune diseases and follicular lymphoma, according to the researchers.

To identify the drug, researchers used AI algorithms to screen more than 13,000 existing drugs against two strains of the live SARS-CoV-2 virus.

LAM-002A was found to be the most effective in combatting the virus, including the lung cells infected with the virus, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

MRI reveals heart damage in most recovered Covid patients

A small study of 100 patients, who recently recovered from Covid-19, indicates that the viral infection may have long-term cardiovascular consequences.

Researchers studied the cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of these patients, which showed that 78 patients had some form of damage in their hearts and cardiac inflammation was present in 60 patients. This was independent of pre-existing health conditions, severity of the infection and the time from the original diagnosis.

The study shows that cardiovascular impact is prevalent in recovering Covid-19 patients. Despite the lack of pre-existing cardiovascular conditions, cardiac inflammation was frequent even among those who were not hospitalised.

According to the researchers, these findings indicate the need investigate the long-term consequences of Covid-19 on heart health.

Alternative Covid-19 tests may enable rapid screening

An alternative amplification technique to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA — a crucial step in the Covid-19 test — may pave the way for testing a large number of people rapidly, researchers say.

Although the technique is not as sensitive than the quantitative RT-PCR, the current standard method for Covid-19 testing, it could be used to screen people and prevent new outbreaks of the disease.

The RT-PCR tests depends on time-consuming temperature cycling steps to amplify enough RNA from a patient sample for detection. As a result, it takes over 24 hours in most clinical laboratories to get the test results.

Instead researchers propose using a technique called reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), which can be carried out at a constant temperature using simple equipment and a different set of reagents.

Wearing face masks do not lead to false sense of security

Wearing face coverings to protect against Covid-19 does not lead to a false sense of security and is unlikely to lead people to forego other measures such as good hand hygiene, a study reveals.

Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization warned that wearing face coverings could “create a false sense of security that can lead to neglecting other essential measures such as hand hygiene practices”.

This type of behaviour is known as ‘risk compensation’.

However, the paper published in BMJ Analysis, notes that “available evidence does not support concerns that wearing face coverings adversely affects hand hygiene”.

Furthermore, they add that the concept of ‘risk compensation’ may discourage policymakers from implementing potentially effective measures, such as wearing face coverings.