The study by scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School, in close collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) was published in Nature.

A common drug, already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), may also be a powerful tool in fighting COVID-19, according to research published this week in Antiviral Research.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, uses a surface spike protein to latch onto human cells and initiate infection.

Critically ill COVID-19 patients who received a single dose of a drug that calms an overreacting immune system were 45% less likely to die overall, and more likely to be out of the hospital or off a ventilator one month after treatment, compared with those who didn't receive the drug, according to a new study by a team from the University of Michigan.

The emergence of COVID-19 is a powerful reminder of how unchecked wildlife trade can lead to the spillover spread of viruses between wildlife and humans. Understanding that wholesale bans on trade can affect community livelihoods and food security, the pandemic underscores the need for widespread pathogen screening and monitoring to better understand, predict and contain outbreaks in wildlife and humans.

The news about remdesivir, the investigational anti-viral drug that has shown early promise in the fight against COVID-19, keeps getting better. This week researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Gilead Sciences reported that remdesivir potently inhibited SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, in human lung cell cultures and that it improved lung function in mice infected with the virus.

An important line of defence in the fight against the new corona virus SARS-CoV-2 is the formation of neutralising antibodies. These can eliminate the intruders and have great potential to be used for prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. A team of researchers led by Prof. Florian Klein (Cologne University Hospital) and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) has further elucidated how these antibodies develop and has isolated potent SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies.

Amid news that the United States has bought up virtually the entire global supply of remdesivir, a new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study outlines how the drug could save lives in countries with less hospital capacity, such as South Africa, where COVID-19 is beginning to overwhelm intensive care units (ICUs).