Garvan Institute of Medical Research Director Chris Goodnow says his team of scientists are looking to develop a new anti-viral drug “to stop infection, to stop hospitalisations and to stop the deaths”.
Instead of working to produce a COVID-19 vaccine, Australian researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research are hoping detailed analysis of the genomes of infected patients will help them to discover why some people appear completely asymptomatic, while the symptoms experienced by others are far more severe.
Mr Goodnow said some coronavirus victims “respond in a way that causes more disease than the virus itself”.
“One of the challenges is that variability in the immune response from one person to another,” he told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
He said an anti-viral drug had the potential to “bypass” the variable immune response experienced by patients and go straight to “the ideal antibody”.
Sky News host Peta Credlin said “this is not a vaccine to prevent you getting the coronavirus, this is something which can be used to treat the virus once it has been contracted and to mitigate the severity of the symptoms”.
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