With the rapid spread of Omiljung, there has been a sharp increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. According to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of 5 o'clock Beijing time on February 9, the number of confirmed cases of new crown in the world exceeded 400 million, and it has only been 34 days since the number of global infections exceeded 300 million. According to the World Health Organization, more than 84 million people worldwide were confirmed to be infected with the new crown virus in the first month of 2022, almost the same number of infections as in 2020.
The coronavirus has been raging around the world for two years, especially with the emergence of Theomewron, and the global pandemic still shows no signs of ending.
Although some foreign experts believe that the new crown global pandemic will end, March this year will usher in a key point in time. However, Wu Zunyou, chief expert of epidemiology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a recent interview with the media that from the characteristics of virus mutation and from the law of the two years of the new crown epidemic, the view that "March has become the key point in time for the end of the new crown epidemic world pandemic" is not sufficient for scientific basis. However, he also pointed out that "from a global perspective, the possibility of a weakening of the epidemic trend in March or for some time to come is very large." At the same time, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. For the foreseeable future, humanity will continue to coexist with the coronavirus.
In the face of the increasing number of confirmed cases, many countries have been tired of coping and have begun to relax control, which will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the overall situation of the global war "epidemic".
However, the Chinese medical research team has recently received good news. The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned from the Institute of Biomedical Research of Fudan University that yu Wenqiang, a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Fudan University and the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, and Professor Lu Hongzhou, president of the Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen, cooperated with the team to find that the new coronavirus and the human common sequence (human sequence) are the key factors causing the disease for the first time after nearly 2 years of intensive research, and believed that hyaluronic acid can be used as a target to develop new crown therapeutic drugs to block the clinical symptoms of new crown infected people. And an oral inhibitor of hyaluronic acid, oxymethocoumarin drugs, were found. At present, the drug is clinically used in the treatment of cholecystitis, etc., the pharmacological toxicity is extremely low, the safety is extremely high, and it can significantly inhibit the hyaluronic acid accumulation mediated by the "human sequence" of the new coronavirus.
"In the early stage, we conducted clinical trials at the Shanghai Public Health Center, and its efficacy was very good." Professor Yu Wenqiang, a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Fudan University and the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, said, "There are fewer patients with severe COVID-19 in China, and we are contacting foreign countries for relevant clinical trials. If clinical trials go well and can verify their efficacy, stability and safety, then patients can be cured by oral medication, and it will no longer be a dream to turn a new crown infection into a common cold in the future. ”
According to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, in the next stage, the research team will simultaneously promote clinical trials abroad. On the other hand, with the large-scale vaccination of vaccines, the continuous emergence of new crown oral drugs, and the comprehensive application of various public health measures, it is foreseeable that the global pandemic situation of the new crown epidemic will be contained in the future, and human society will return to normal.
When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?
The COVID-19 pandemic has been around for two years, and the coronavirus is still mutating, with a new super-variant, Olmikeron, replacing Delta as the world's leading endemic strain.
Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Statistical Evaluation at the University of Washington, predicted in an opinion piece last month in the international authoritative medical journal The Lancet that the COVID-19 pandemic will persist, but the global pandemic is likely to end soon, with the key point in time being March this year. At that time, half of the world's population will be infected with the Aumechjong variant, and with vaccination and other factors, humans will eventually establish an immune barrier.
However, shortly thereafter, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus publicly warned that the COVID-19 pandemic was far from over. For the foreseeable future, humanity will continue to coexist with the coronavirus. But coexistence in no way means allowing viruses to rage, because the world cannot "bet on a virus that we cannot control or predict its evolutionary trajectory."
"People have different ideas about how the COVID-19 pandemic will develop and how the worst phase will end, but it is dangerous to assume that Omilon will be the last mutation or that the COVID-19 pandemic is coming to an end. I think the opposite is true – globally, there are likely to be more variants in the current situation. In order to change the course of the epidemic, we must change the conditions that drive it, which is not easy and there is no ready-made approach. Tedros said.
Recently, Wu Zunyou, chief expert of epidemiology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, made it clear in an interview with the Global Times that the global COVID-19 pandemic could not end in March. Wu Zunyou pointed out that the analysis of Murray's article is not accurate. He came up with this hypothesis in the light of the flu, but there are many differences between the flu and the new crown, and his hypothesis has some places to accept the challenges of reality. The first is that the immunity maintenance time after infection with influenza can usually reach one year, while the immunity maintenance time after infection with the new crown is generally about 3 to 6 months. The second is that the new crown virus mutates very quickly, almost every day. The mutation of influenza virus is regular, and the mutation cycle is long, usually changing every year or several years, in this year or several years, if the mutation of the virus is only in the "subtype", it will not affect cross-protection. Therefore, from the characteristics of virus mutation and from the law of the two-year epidemic of the new crown epidemic, the view that "March has become the key time point for the end of the world pandemic of the new crown epidemic" is not sufficiently based on science.
However, Wu Zunyou believes that the trend of the new crown virus epidemic will definitely weaken in the future period of time, because the prevalence of each new strain will always decline after reaching its peak. "From a global perspective, there is a strong possibility that the trend will weaken in March or for some time to come."
However, the current peak of the Omicron epidemic has not yet arrived.
MARIA VAN KIRKHOF, WHO's technical head of covid-19, noted that the number of confirmed cases of infection with the Omiljung strain is "staggering" and that the actual number of cases may even be higher. The surge in cases following the spread of the Olmikron strain dwarfs the previous peaks of the outbreak. "We are still in the midst of an outbreak," said Maria Van Krkhof, "and many countries have not yet reached the peak of infection in Omikeron." She is extremely disturbed by the fact that the number of new deaths has been on the rise in recent weeks, suggesting that "the virus is still dangerous."
Also based on the reality that the number of confirmed cases is rising, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes that whether Ormicron can become a variant that "ends" the new crown pneumonia pandemic is still an "open question".
"Although the Omiljunn strain is not highly pathogenic, the surge in the number of infected people (and the resulting pathogenicity rate) has exceeded the low pathogenicity limit. So I think whether the Opmikharon variant will become the so-called 'live virus vaccine' that everyone expects is still an open question, because there is a good chance that new variants will emerge. Fauci said.
Finding the "key molecules" of the new crown virus
From Delta to Omiqueron, and even the latest "Delta Kerong" with genetic characteristics similar to Those in The Delta genome, constantly mutagenerated into a formidable challenge for people to cope with the new crown virus. How to find out the culprit behind the mutation of the crown virus has also become the direction of continuous efforts of scientists in China and even around the world.
Professor Yu Wenqiang introduced that the new crown virus belongs to the RNA virus, the most important feature is constantly mutated, therefore, the new crown virus mutation strain continues to emerge. To defeat the new crown virus, drug research and development for the new crown virus itself must outperform the continuous mutation of the new crown virus, thereby blocking the clinical symptoms and complications of the new crown pneumonia. This requires figuring out what are the key molecules that cause disease from different strains of the new coronavirus? Can we develop drugs that can cope with the constant mutation of the new crown virus for the clinical symptoms of new crown pneumonia?
Schematic diagram of the gene expression associated with the promotion of inflammation by the new coronavirus HIS
To this end, the research team recruited 137 new crown patients, first through genetic sequence comparison analysis, found that there are 5 segments of the new crown virus genome exactly the same sequence as humans, the research team named it "human sequence". "The genetic sequence is the code for all life forms, and we were surprised to find that the new crown virus has a 'common code' (exactly the same sequence) as humans, so we named it 'human sequence'." Yu Wenqiang added that the "human sequence" refers to the sequence that exists in both humans and the new crown virus. The "common code" also refers to these sequences that humans and the new crown virus have in common, and these common sequences have the function of regulating gene expression.
The Chinese research team also made a surprising discovery that they could cause polished glass lesions in the lungs of mice with hyaluronic acid alone, which confirmed that hyaluronic acid is the root cause of the special lesion characteristics of the lungs of new crown patients.
Professor Lu Hongzhou explained that hyaluronic acid, also known as hyaluronic acid, has a strong ability to absorb water, is the darling of today's beauty industry, but it is the culprit of the new crown virus, and the clinical symptoms such as elevated plasma hyaluronic acid, decreased lymphocytes and pulmonary grinding glass lesions in new crown patients are closely related to hyaluronic acid. Studies suggest that hyaluronic acid is an important marker for predicting the progression of the new crown patients, and the detection of plasma hyaluronic acid content is expected to become an important indicator to distinguish asymptomatic infected people from whether patients need to be admitted to the hospital.
The team believes that hyaluronic acid can be used as a target to develop new crown therapeutic drugs to block the generation of clinical symptoms in people infected with new crown. So the researchers found an oral inhibitor of hyaluronic acid, the oxymethodalamarin drug. The drug is clinically used in the treatment of cholecystitis and other treatments, the pharmacological toxicity is extremely low, the safety is extremely high, and it can significantly inhibit the hyaluronic acid accumulation mediated by the "human sequence" of the new crown virus. Preliminary clinical trials have confirmed that oral oxymethotodoulin can improve clinical symptoms such as reduced lymphocyte count and lung lesions in patients with new crown, and has good application prospects for the treatment of new crown pneumonia, turning new crown infection into a common cold is no longer a dream.
In fact, this is not the first time that the new crown infection has "fluized". Previously, an earlier study from nference, a data analytics firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed that there were 26 amino acid mutations on the Omiljung virus spike protein, including 23 replacements, two deletions and one insertion, one of which was inserted with the mutation ins214EPE, which had not been observed in any previous coronavirus variant strains. But this mutant gene sequence is very common in viruses that cause the common cold, such as HCoV-229E, and is also present in the human genome.
However, for the question of whether Aumechjong will become a "big flu", Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also said in an interview with the above media that Omiljung cannot be a "big flu" because its infection site is not the same as the flu, and the severity of the clinical symptoms it causes and the flu are completely two levels.
"The proportion of pneumonia caused by Aumi Kerong is high, except for China, the severe illness rate and case fatality rate caused by Omicron in other countries are much higher than those caused by influenza." In the United States, for example, the number of deaths caused by the Omicron strain during its epidemic is even much higher than that caused during the Delta strain epidemic. The proportion of deaths caused by influenza is still relatively small. So Omiljung can't be a big flu'. If you look at it as a big flu, it will dilute the epidemic situation, weaken people's attention to it, and be very detrimental to epidemic prevention and control. Wu Zunyou said.
"COVID-19 coexists with humanity and should be permanent for now. At the same time, the severity and scale of the COVID-19 epidemic will depend on the extent to which humanity struggles with COVID-19. It should be said that the new crown virus will always exist, but the epidemic level will be different. Wu Zunyou stressed.