Costa Rica uses "horse blood" to treat Corona patients
For weeks, researchers in Costa Rica have been conducting tests on 27 patients taking a treatment against the emerging corona virus developed from horse blood plasma.
Researchers at the Clodomero Picado Institute of the University of Costa Rica injected six horses with proteins for the Coronavirus, which they obtained from laboratories in China and Britain, and then collected the antibodies developed from the animals and found in their blood plasma.
Lab experiments were initially conducted in a US laboratory affiliated with George Mason University in Virginia, in the eastern United States.
American researcher Charles Bailey in charge of the study said: "We exposed the antibodies produced in horses to several solutions of SARS-Cove 2 virus obtained through cell culture, and we found that the threat of the virus has been eliminated."
Then, a first set of 1,000 packages were manufactured, each containing 10 ml of purified solution, and it is currently used in phase two experiments on 26 patients who were detected with Covid-19.
The doctor, Willem Bogan, the supervisor of the study, indicated that the preliminary results showed that the treatment "is very safe, which leads to the belief that it is suitable for patients."
Andres Hernandez, the pharmacist supervising the Claudomero-Pico Institute, told AFP that if the treatment is approved after the third experimental phase, which will include hundreds of patients, then it will start to be used on people in the first stages of the disease, "when the symptoms are mild and the viral load is weak."
He pointed out that the goal is for the antibodies taken from horse blood to neutralize the risk of the virus, which leads to a reduction in symptoms within four days, allowing the patient to breathe without difficulties, with the symptoms of high fever resolving.
With this treatment, the health authorities hope to reduce the flow of patients to intensive care departments that are close to exhausting their capacity, with about a thousand infections recorded daily in the country with the virus.
The small country in Central America with five million people recorded 77,000 new cases of the new Corona virus, including more than 900 deaths.
The Clodomero Picado Institute has a large experience in the production of anti-toxin vaccines, which it exports to several countries in Latin America and Africa.
The institute usually uses the horses it owns in a mountainous location northwest of the capital, San Jose.
"We have always worked with horses because they are very malleable and intelligent animals, and their blood volume allows them to obtain a large amount of plasma," Hernandez said.
The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, told Agence France-Presse that, after completion of trials, this treatment will be at the disposal of other countries and organizations, with the support of the World Health Organization.
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