CV and mad panic behaviour

[Mav]

Help might be on the way!

Melbourne researchers trial use of common blood-thinning drug heparin to combat COVID-19, abc.net.au.

Nearly two years later, with the help of researchers at Melbourne, Monash and Oxford Universities, his team has been able to replicate international findings that heparin can block the transmission of COVID-19 and prevent infection.

The spray coats the nose but does not go down into the lungs. The researchers say it is cheap, easy to distribute and is expected to be effective against mutant strains of the virus including the Omicron variant.

"It won't matter if a new variant comes along, this drug will block that protein from infecting the cells," Professor Campbell said.

"I'm very confident that we can demonstrate that it will work, and people will be using this before they go to the shops and before they go to school."

Director of the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre at Monash University, Michelle McIntosh, has spent the past 20 months working on the best possible formulation for the nasal spray.

She said some coronavirus vaccines had limited distribution in some countries because they needed to be stored at ultra-low temperatures.

"One of the wonderful things about heparin is it is already available on the market as an approved product for another purpose, it doesn't require refrigeration and can be stored in plastic vials so it can be distributed very widely and effectively," Professor McIntosh said.

"We are not proposing this as an alternative to a vaccination, it is a supplement for people who can't be vaccinated, but we do imagine it will be very widely used."