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Around 100 clinical trials are in the works to treat COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, in China, with other trials starting in Japan, Thailand, and England. The virus has killed 1,772 people and infected more than 70,000 in China, according to the World Health Organization, with estimates of up to 200,000 infections, based on computer modeling by Trevor Bedford of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and his colleagues.
One of the trials already underway is in Shanghai, where doctors are taking blood plasma from patients who were sickened by the virus and recovered and infusing it into patients who are still ill. “We are positive that this method can be very effective in our patients,” Lu Hongzhou, co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre, tells Reuters. A World Health Organization (WHO) official says the therapy is a “very valid” one to test, ...
