The country that brought the coronavirus to the world back in 2020 now says they’ve found the cure to all strains of COVID, including the newest one.
From Russia Today:
Chinese scientists claim to have isolated an antibody which can effectively neutralize all strains of Covid-19, referencing both lab experiments and those performed on a living organism.
In a study published on Tuesday, Chinese scientists from a variety of institutions, including Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, suggested that they may have the panacea to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The authors claim that monoclonal antibody 35B5 has been shown in both in vitro (laboratory or test-tube experiment) and in vivo (performed on living organism) studies to neutralize wild-type Covid-19 (without mutations) as well as variants of concern (VOCs). The in vivo tests were carried out on humanized mice.
The scientists noted that the antibody also works on the highly mutated Delta variant, which has been responsible for deadly waves of infection around the world since it first emerged in India earlier this year.
“35B5 neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] by targeting a unique epitope [part of the antigen molecule which the antibody attaches itself to] that avoids the prevailing mutation sites,” the study explains. In other words, 35B5 targets a unique part of the virus that does not change during the mutation process.
By targeting part of the virus which is not impacted by the mutations identified in circulating VOCs, antibody 35B5 demonstrated capacity for “pan-neutralizing efficacy” across multiple strains. These findings, the scientists argue, could be “exploited for the rational design of a universal SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] vaccine.”
The part of the antigen targeted by antibody 35B5 is also present in the Omicron variant, the researchers note.
Color me skeptical on this one. It’s not being widely reported (only in Russia Today) and you’d think that if this were the case, the world would be jumping up at down at the idea that China found the cure. The WHO, which loves China, would be all over this right?
I’d like to see other scientists around the world, including our own, verify the data and the cure before I accept the legitimacy of this claim. Until then, I’m gonna say this sounds too good to be true, especially coming from China.