Two antibody formulations developed from hyperimmunized horse plasma and viral proteins showed ability to inhibit the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 or Coronavirus disease.
The Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) announced that tests conducted at George Mason University in the United States confirm that medicine developed by Costa Rican scientists at the Clodomiro Picado Institute can prevent the disease from progressing in patients.
“The results clearly show that horses produced a large amount of antibodies that block the virus from entering human cells. This indicates that the drug can be very efficient and that the amount that will be required to treat patients would be relatively low,“ confirmed microbiologist and clinical chemist Alberto Girón at the press conference.
On Tuesday it was also reported that the formulations passed the infertility tests as part of the analysis developed by the Laboratory of Analysis and Pharmaceutical Advisory of the University of Costa Rica (UCR). The institution is working in parallel on the protocol to be used for the clinical use of the new drug.
This new plasma is 100 times more potent than the plasma obtained in humans.
Interinstitutional work
Four months ago, CCSS, UCR and CCSS announced that they would work together to combat COVID-19. In this way, researchers at Clodomiro Picado used several coronavirus proteins to immunize six horses to produce antibodies.
The animals were not hurt. After this process, scientists extracted the blood and separated the continent blood plasma from antibodies. The latter are with which scientists work to provide solutions to deal with the crisis caused by this disease.
in Costa Rica. 
