Coronavirus: hamsters may show path toward reducing viral load in Covid-19 patients, Hong Kong microbiology team finds
- Hamsters infected with coronavirus after first being injected with blood serum from recovered subjects found to have a viral load 10 times smaller
- The team is now awaiting word from the city’s Medical Council if they will be able to attempt the experiments on humans
Hong Kong scientists are using a blood serum from hamsters that have recovered from Covid-19 in experiments they say have significantly reduced the viral loads in other subjects.
The experiments have also shown that hamsters – which have enzyme receptors similar to those in humans – can recover from the coronavirus if they are strong enough to survive the first seven days after onset.
The findings come to light as Hong Kong faces a fresh wave of Covid-19 cases, with the tally of infected rising to 714 on Tuesday, with four fatalities. The virus has infected more than 771,000 worldwide and killed over 36,000.
Led by top microbiologist Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, researchers from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) began to use golden Syrian hamsters for testing in February, based on the high similarity between the “ACE2 protein” in hamsters and that in humans.
ACE2, or Angiotensin converting enzyme 2, is the host cell receptor responsible for the novel coronavirus.