*Pakistan is likely to become first country to complete immunoglobulin (IG) therapy research needed to treat coronavirus, says Scientists at Karachi’s Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS).*
As per details, scientists – who are conducting clinical trials of immunoglobulin (C-IVIG) therapy for the treatment novel coronavirus (COVID-19) – say, as quoted by Arab News, ‘severe’ patients who had received the product had a 100 percent recovery rate.
The therapy uses immunoglobulin (IG), which is rich in the antibodies that target the virus.
The scientists say continues infusion of immunoglobulin can neutralise the infection in patients and shorten the course of the disease.
In June, DUHS started trail of the therapy on 30 participants, most from the high-risk group of people above the age of 60, with many suffering from diabetes, hypertension and other comorbidities.
Dr. Shaukat Ali, head of biotechnology at DUHS said, “The trials are very encouraging and remarkable.”
“At the moment, what we have seen is that all severe patients who received C-IVIG treatment had 100 percent recovery ratio while in critical patients the recovery ratio was 50 to 60 percent.”
Besides the high recovery rate, the team observed that therapy significantly reduced the period of hospitalisation, said Ali.
“The results show that the number of hospitalisation days were reduced to six and a half days for severe patients, which is very encouraging because normally a severe patient would occupy hospital resources for 20 to 25 days.”
Ali said Pakistan was the first country to develop the immunoglobulin solution in April 2020.