Virologist Guido Silvestri: "The virus is running out, Science will save humanity"

2020-10-08T20:42:03.429Z

"Today, with the new 4,458 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection (albeit with contained mortality and hospital situation under control), many are experiencing moments of anxiety, at times unfortunately accentuated by a communication that tends to confuse the (right) recommendation of (due) caution with hints of distressing (and counterproductive) alarmism ", writes on Facebook the virologist Guido Silvestri who however urges" everyone to be optimistic and remember the Science that is coming to the rescue of humanity plagued by the pandemic ". Fifty-seven years old, born in Perugia, Silvestri explains the three important areas of progress that could help defend us from the Covid-19 coronavirus: "The first area is that of vaccines, in which eight promising candidates are in phase-3 of clinical trials, with various platforms (inactivated virus, adenoviral vectors and messenger RNA) and excellent preliminary results from both preclinical animal studies and phase 1 and 2 clinical studies. It is now a matter of months, if not weeks, before programs begin mass vaccination (which seems to be already underway in China and Russia). It should be remembered that these platforms were developed especially in previous research efforts for vaccines against AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria, flu, which has enormously accelerated the their application for Covid-19. The second area is that of genetic studies that, using technologies of great "throughput" (Hospital services and treated patients, ed) develop upped to study cellular DNA in the context of other diseases, they have now made it possible to discover gene variants significantly associated with severe SARS-CoV-2 disease. These studies are important to define clinical risk markers in patients with COVID-19 to be used to "personalize" therapy and understand if the high lethality of the first wave has contributed to the infection of highly susceptible subjects for genetic reasons. The third area is the development of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Here, Trump's rapid improvement after administering the Regeneron cocktail created an "acceleration" of development, with companies Regeneron and Lilly announcing super-promising results of interim phase-3 studies of their products, with reduction of the risk of hospital admission if administered at the time of the positive swab between 72% and 85% (which should correspond to a similar if not greater reduction in lethality) "." All to reiterate - concludes Silvestri - while we prepare to face these last months of forced coexistence with the virus, which is now really numbered ".