Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) expects to initiate human clinical studies of its lead vaccine candidate at the by September 2020 and anticipates the first batches of a COVID-19 vaccine could be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021, a substantially accelerated timeframe in comparison to the typical vaccine development process.
Hydroxychloroquine /azithromycin for COVID-19: New Clinical Trial Results
Twenty cases were treated in this study and showed a significant reduction of the viral carriage at D6-post inclusion compared to controls, and much lower average carrying duration than reported of untreated patients in the literature. Azithromycin added to hydroxychloroquine was significantly more efficient for virus elimination. Despite its small sample size our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.
UC Berkeley Scientists Create a Pop-Up Lab for Testing COVID-19 Patient Samples
Clinical testing of patient samples is highly regulated, requiring CLIA certification not only of lab scientists, but of the actual laboratory space, equipment and quality control procedures. However, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) are creating from scratch a diagnostic lab with the capability to process more than 1,000 patient samples per day. While the testing lab will focus initially on samples from students and other members of the UC Berkeley community, the team is already coordinating with medical centers around the East Bay to eventually offer rapid turnaround to also meet their diagnostic needs.