An Israeli drug was reported to be successful in initial trials after all 30 moderate to severe cases were cured, providing a glimmer of hope in fighting the COVID-19 crisis.
Thirty patients in serious conditions participated in the Phase I clinical trial of EXO-CD24, an experimental inhaled medication developed at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, according to a report by CBN News.
Twenty-nine of these patients were discharged from the hospital within three to five days, while one patient took slightly longer to recover.
Among those who participated in the trial was Sonya Cohen.
Cohen, who tested positive for COVID-19, went to the hospital unable to breath. She was placed in intensive care and needed oxygen.
Professor Nadir Arber, head of the Preventive Medicine Division at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, asked Cohen if she would be willing to be a part of a clinical trial for a new drug. She said yes.
“From the first, it’s possible to say I felt a lot better. After two days, I got off the oxygen in stages and I could breathe,” Sonya told CBN News.
“I could really breathe. I felt that I was between life and death. Thanks to God and of course thanks to the doctors.”
CD24 is a protein delivered to the lungs by exosomes in the drug, helping the immune system to rebalance.
“This is a drug. It is very simple. We give it to patients with severe disease before they are going to deteriorate to very severe disease that mandates ventilations and even mortality,” Arber told CBN News.
“We give it by inhalation... It’s very simple. It’s like two to three minutes per day and you do it for five days. So, we enrolled 30 patients in phase one,” he said. “We checked for safety and the drug was very safe. No side effects whatsoever.”
He added COVID-19 is just like a regular flu for most people but for about five to seven percent of those who contracted it, it can be much worse.
“We don’t really treat the corona, we treated the endpoint,” he said. “There over-reactions of the immune system. The immune system is acting furiously and mainly in the lung releasing a lot of cytokines and chemokines that usually fight infections but now they are destroying the lung tissue, which is very friable,” Arber said.
The medicine will now move on to further trial phases.
“The biggest advantage of my drug, if it’s effective of course, is that I can produce it fast, efficient, and cheap. Within a few months, I can supply the entire world’s needs. So, this is exciting,” Arder said.
Israel is known for leading the world in inoculating its population against COVID-19, with more than five million people or half of its population, already having received the vaccine.