This U of T scientist says he’s invented a ‘cure’ for COVID-19. Will patients ever see it?

But when Sachdev Sidhu talks about what his team has accomplished in their lab at the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, the words are entirely his own. And they stun.

A cure. For the coronavirus. For SARS-CoV-2. For the COVID-19 disease that has killed upwards of 320,000 people around the planet.

A knockout punch.

“Yes, I believe ‘cure’ is the proper word,’’ the molecular engineer says, almost blandly. “They would no longer be ill. They would no longer have the virus in their system. That’s a cure.’’

Especially where treatments or vaccines are based on newer technologies, considering that they might need to be given to most of the population of the world within a relatively short time frame, they've first got to be very sure they're safe.

WORLD NEWSJULY 4, 2020 / 1:55 PM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
WHO halts hydroxychloroquine, HIV drugs in COVID trials after failure to reduce death

Macdoc wrote:

WORLD NEWSJULY 4, 2020 / 1:55 PM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
WHO halts hydroxychloroquine, HIV drugs in COVID trials after failure to reduce death

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2450OJ

Macdoc wrote:Very fucking fast into Phase 3 ....serious home run if it succeeds

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2481EU

But the company - which has never produced an approved vaccine or run a large trial - has squabbled with government scientists over the process,

When coronavirus robs you of your sense of smell

AFP
7 July

"What I miss most is the smell of my son when I kiss him, the smell of my wife's body," says Jean-Michel Maillard.

Anosmia - the loss of one's sense of smell - may be an invisible handicap, but is psychologically difficult to live with and has no real treatment, he says.

And it is the price that an increasing number of people are paying after surviving a brush with the coronavirus, with some facing a seemingly long-term inability to smell.

"Anosmia cuts you off from the smells of life, it's a torture," says Maillard, president of anosmie.org, a French group designed to help sufferers.
If you have the condition you can no longer breathe in the smell of your first morning coffee, smell the cut grass of a freshly mown lawn or even "the reassuring smell of soap on your skin when you're preparing for a meeting", he says.
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"There are dozens of causes of anosmia," he says, including nasal polyps, chronic rhinitis, diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Now the new coronavirus has been added to that list, says Corre - with the symptom alone allowing a diagnosis of Covid-19 in some cases.

"When people lose their sense of smell and don't get it back, we note a real change in the quality of life and a level of depression that is not insignificant," he adds.
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"According to the first numbers, around 80 percent of patients suffering from Covid-19 recover spontaneously in less than a month and often even faster, in eight to 10 days".

For others, however, it could be that the disease has destroyed their olfactory neurons - the ones that detect smells. The good news is that these neurons, at the back of the nose, are able to regenerate.
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‘Hidden epidemic’ after Covid-19: Scientists sound alarm as strokes, nerve damage reported even in mild and recovering cases

8 Jul, 2020

Neurologists in the UK are warning of a potential “hidden epidemic” of brain disorders after dozens of recovering Covid-19 patients presented with brain inflammation, delirium, nerve damage, and strokes.
The research, published Wednesday in the journal Brain, makes for sobering reading as doctors may be missing signs of potentially fatal brain disorders developing in mild and recovering Covid-19 patients. The appearance and severity of the brain conditions did not necessarily correlate with severe respiratory symptoms associated with Covid-19.

“It’s a concern if some hidden epidemic could occur after Covid where you’re going to see delayed effects on the brain, because there could be subtle effects on the brain and slowly things happen over the coming years, but it’s far too early for us to judge now,” Michael Zandi, a senior author on the study and a consultant at the institute and University College London Hospitals NHS foundation trust, said.

The study looked at 43 UK Covid-19 patients aged 16 to 85, many of whom did not experience any of the respiratory symptoms typically associated with the disease, instead presenting neurological disorders as their primary symptoms.

Of the 43, a dozen patients had inflamed central nervous systems, 10 had brain disease with delirium or psychosis, eight had strokes, and a further eight had peripheral nerve damage in the form of Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves causing paralysis.
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Worryingly, doctors noted a rise in a life-threatening condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM): instances rose from just one a month prior to the pandemic to two or three per week in April and May. ADEM is fatal in five percent of cases, and one 59-year-old woman in the patient group studied died from the condition.
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Coronavirus update: Remdesivir approved as Australia's first COVID-19 treatment only available for severe cases

Posted 4hhours ago, updated 1hhour ago

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In seven patients (four female), regardless of anticoagulation status, all autopsies demonstrated platelet-rich thrombi in the pulmonary, hepatic, renal, and cardiac microvasculature. Megakaryocytes were seen in higher than usual numbers in the lungs and heart. Two cases had thrombi in the large pulmonary arteries, where casts conformed to the anatomic location. Thrombi in the IVC were not found, but the deep leg veins were not dissected.

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