Dr. Hala Zayed, Minister of Health and Population, revealed that "Lancet" a UK medical journal and one of the major international medical journals, has published an Egyptian research paper on the hypothesis of numbers of the infected people with novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Egypt.
Dr. Zayed announced the start of an experiment to inject those infected with the Coronavirus with plasma, extracted from those who had recovered from the virus. This method will be introduced to treat people of critical cases. The new experiment comes within the framework of the Egyptian states efforts to find treatment lines.
Countries in the world are racing to find a treatment for patients with the novel Coronavirus.
Dr. Zayed affirmed that Egypt has sufficient experience in plasma transfusing, pointing out that the ministry is striving to find various ways through scientific research to find therapeutic methods for those infected with the Coronavirus.
She indicated that the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal, which is one of the largest international scientific journals in the field of infectious diseases and medical research, has approved and published a "research paper" submitted by a specialized research team from the Ministry The Egyptian Health and Population.
The paper includes a mathematical hypothesis for the numbers of new cases infected with the Coronavirus in Egypt. It based on different methods applied by some regions and countries of the world.
The magazine approved the research paper for publication on its site on the 27th of April 2020.
She pointed out that it is the first time to accept such a research paper from Egyptian Ministry of Health in one week to be published in such international prominent scientific journals.
On the other hand, Dr. Khalid Mujahid, Adviser to the Minister of Health and Population for Media Affairs and the official spokesman for the ministry, explained that since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the possibility of using the plasma extracted from recovered people from the COVID-19 to be used in treating of patients of critical cases.
Dr. Mujahid added that plasma contains antibodies to the virus, which gives a possibility for improvement of the critical cases, especially with research evidence in many countries of the world.
The research team of the Ministry of Health and Population has worked on this method in cooperation with the scientific committee formed by a decision made by the minister.
The committee is responsible for developing,updating protocols, and overseeing the development and implementation of research protocols in collaboration with several research institutions in the world.
Dr. Mujahid unveiled that experts started to extract plasma from six patients recovering from infection with the Coronavirus. Tests were conducted on the safety of the plasma after extraction, in addition to measuring of the level of antibodies in the extracted serum.
Results of the examinations proved the validity of using of the plasma from three out of six recovered.
The adviser to the Minister of Health added that the first patient infected with Coronavirus with plasma extracted from recovered people has already been started, indicating that in the coming days, plasma injections of other patients will be completed in accordance with the requirements of the research protocol in this regard.
The results will be announced first-hand. He made clear that, as soon as the patients' response is confirmed, the plasma extracted from the recovered people will be used at a large scale as a treatment for patients of the Coronavirus. The recovered people will be invited to donate plasma to help patients with critical conditions.
Furthermore, the results of the research will be exchanged with international agencies and published in international medical research journals.
Within the framework of the Ministry of Health and Population policy to focus on scientific research, Mujahid affirmed that the ministry participated through a large research team in the solidarity trial of the World Health Organization (WHO). One hundred countries across the globe have participated in those trails so far.
The adviser to the Minister of Health confirmed that this study is being conducted in Egypt in all hospitals allotted to quarantine patients of the Coronavirus, adding that the study includes two parts, the first "observational" for analyzing patient data and showing indicators by building a unified database that includes all countries of the world aimed at increasing the knowledge of the virus and its characteristics more accurately to deal with it in the best treatment methods.
He explained that the second part includes clinical trials on research drugs and their results Also, the Ministry of Health and Population is participating with the World Health Organization in studying the genetic details of the Coronavirus, which may affect the course of diagnosis and treatment.
Below is link attached by the Ministry of Health regarding the research published on the Lancet Infectious Diseases website: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30319-4/fulltext
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