The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology has begun developing an analogue of the coronavirus drug used by the US President Donald Trump . The drug is expected to appear at the end of 2021, announced TASS director of the center Alexander Gintsburg .
According to him, the center received a grant to develop a drug based on monoclonal antibodies. “These are actually the antibodies that protect [from the virus and are] in the plasma of those who have been ill, only they will be produced by a genetically engineered method outside the human body and in a concentrated form,” Ginsburg explained.
In addition, a vaccine is being developed that will simultaneously protect against coronavirus and influenza. Thus, the technology will make it possible to create a drug for different strains of the same pathogen or for different viruses. Also, scientists are creating “chemistry that should protect against nosocomial infections.” The director of the center recalled that this factor is considered the main cause of death of patients with COVID-19 in the hospital.
The American leader and his wife Melania Trump contracted the coronavirus in October. The head of state was treated at the Walter Reed military hospital. He was taking an experimental antibody-based serum. Trump claimed to have felt like a superman after taking the medication. A few days later, antibodies to the infection were found in his blood and he was discharged from the hospital.