New hope as Israel reports Covid ‘breakthrough’

The Gibraltar Government is working with Israeli medical professionals following the discovery of a new drug that has been used to treat hospitalised Covid cases.

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo revealed in Parliament that Gibraltar was now in touch with health professionals in Israel over the new drug.

He thanked Leader of Together Gibraltar, Marlene Hassan Nahon and her sister, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Fleur Hassan Nahoum, for alerting the government to the development and assisting in this process.

“Signs coming from Israel of very fast and effective ‘treatment’ for Covid rather than ‘cure’ as such will nonetheless be welcome,” Mr Picardo said.

The Times of Israel reported on Friday that 29 of 30 Covid-19 patients offered this treatment left hospital with three to five days.

The treatment developed at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center has completed phase 1 trials and according to the hospital appears to have helped numerous moderate-to-serious cases of Covid-19 quickly recover from the disease.

The medicine fights the cytokine storm — a potentially lethal immune overreaction to the coronavirus infection that is believed to be responsible for much of the deaths associated with the disease, the Times of Israel said.

Tiny carrier sacs that shuttle materials between cells, called exosomes are used to deliver a protein called CD24 to the lungs.

This protein has reportedly calmed down the immune system and curbed the storm.

The medicine will now move on to further trial phases, but the hospital has called this a breakthrough in the treatment of Covid-19.

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