WHO s mission to China ends without finding the origin of the virus straitstimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from straitstimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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VIDEO: Animation showing how the antiviral lipopeptide prevents coronavirus infection by blocking spike protein-mediated fusion. view more
Credit: Visualization by Gaël McGill, Ph.D. & Jonathan Khao, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School and Digizyme (www.digizyme.com (link is external and opens in a new window)) created with.
A nasal antiviral created by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons blocked transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets, suggesting the nasal spray also may prevent infection in people exposed to the new coronavirus, including recent variants
The compound in the spray a lipopeptide developed by Matteo Porotto, PhD, and Anne Moscona, MD, professors in the Department of Pediatrics and directors of the Center for Host-Pathogen Interaction is designed to prevent the new coronavirus from entering host cells.
This week, a much anticipated fact-finding mission into the origins of Covid-19 returned from a month-long field visit to China. The team of scientists appointed by the World Health Organization is currently writing up their findings, which will be published in a summary report next week, with a full report expected to follow sometime after that. But on Tuesday, at a joint briefing with Chinese health officials, the teamâs leaders gave the world a sneak peek at what new information they had unearthed. In short, not much.
âDid we change dramatically the picture we had beforehand? I donât think so,â said Peter Ben Embarek, a zoonosis expert with the WHO who headed the investigation. Like a majority of scientists, the group still favors the idea that SARS-CoV-2 originated in animals before spilling into humans. âDid we improve our understanding? Did we add details to that story? Absolutely,â he continued.
WHO investigation into COVID-19 s origin says lab incident extremely unlikely
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Peter Ben Embarek displays a pathways-of-emergence diagram during the WHO press conference in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 9, 2021.Hector Retamal/Getty
An expert group of investigators convened by the World Health Organization and China to examine the murky, complex origins of the coronavirus pandemic have revealed initial conclusions from a fact-finding mission that began just under two weeks ago. Liang Wannian, one of the scientists with China s National Health Commission, told reporters in a press conference Tuesday that the team hasn t found clear evidence of an animal-to-human spillover.