Workers at the UW Medicine drive-through testing facility. (AP Photo / Ted S. Warren)
There is good news on the COVID front that involves curing people who have already contracted the disease in Israel, and doctors there have reported quite dramatic results. Mercer Island’s doctor, Dr. Gordon Cohen, joined the Morning News in Seattle to discuss what that entails.
“The good news from Israel is that they had 30 patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 and received a treatment developed in Tel Aviv as part of a phase one study … designed to treat a component of the disease that we talked about, which it’s the cytokine storm. This is the body’s reaction to the virus, and it is this overwhelming immune response that causes the flooding of the lungs and the inflammation of all organ systems that often leads to death, ”he said.
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“So, in this case, they deliver an inhaled protein – the CD 24 protein to the lungs – and find that it really drastically mitigates the cytokine storm that occurs, and in fact, they basically healed 30 out of 30 patients and 29 out of 30 of them in just a few days. So it was a very dramatic response. “
The treatment is not only inhalable, but at first it seems to have fewer side effects than other COVID treatments.
“It is inhaled once a day for a few minutes at a time, and they do it for five days, and it targets the lungs directly, which is actually the location of the cytokine storm. It really differs from other treatments – which we give to the whole body, we give systemically – and it has many side effects. It doesn’t really have many side effects associated with it, ”said Dr. Cohen.
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