Australian medical researchers have developed genetically supercharged cells that allow them to test the effect of SARS-CoV-2 faster than other means.
The team, from the Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity in Society at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), unveiled the research on Wednesday.
They said the cells would enable medical experts to quickly understand the dynamics of different variants of the virus and test their ability to evade vaccines.
Research leader Associate Professor Stuart Turville said viruses in the genetically developed cells replicate four times faster than through any other technique. This means we quickly understand a number of things about the virus from a single swab, including potency (the potential of the virus to transmit), how the virus reacts to different treatments or whether the virus is changing in a way we don t expect it to, Turville said.
Aussie researchers create supercharged cells to speed up detection of COVID-19 - World News
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In comparative terms, deaths from COVID-19 are currently about:
90% below annual fatalities from all causes.
7.7 times average annual fatalities from the flu.
70% above annual fatalities from accidents.
Although C-19 is a new disease and took its first reported life in the U.S. during late February, these comparisons may substantially overstate its deadliness. This is because fatalities from accidents, the flu, and other common causes of death occur in droves every year, and this is unlikely for C-19 because of the facts below.
Immunity
The primary reason why the flu kills tens of thousands of people every year is that the viruses that cause it mutate in ways that prevent humans from becoming immune to them. Per the Journal of Infectious Diseases, “All viruses mutate, but influenza remains highly unusual among infectious diseases” because it mutates very rapidly, and thus, “new vaccines are needed almost every year” to protect against it.