Reported by Science & Technology Daily:

As to the battle against the COVID-19, Chinese Ministry of Science and 
Technology (MOST) has been launched the program of "Dealing With the Outbreak 
of COVID-19 Using Science and Technology", a program including four batches of 
20 emergency projects until now. Moreover, MOST re-examining two major 
scientific and technological projects, including the "Creation of Important 
Innovative New Drugs" and the "Prevention and Treatment of Severe Contagions", 
and a series of national essential research and development plans. Recently, 
some important achievements from these projects have already been implemented 
in the front line of epidemic prevention and control.

When it comes to drug screening, front-line staff from different research teams 
collaborated on the basis of existing researches, making great efforts to 
systematically and massively screen the drugs that have been on the market 
already or already go into clinical trials. As a consequence, they discovered 
potentially effective anti- coronavirus drugs, such as Chloroquine Phosphate, 
Remdesivir, and Favipiravir. Furthermore, in recent days, researchers have 
urgently launched some clinical trials and the results show that the curative 
effect of drugs on patients is increasingly obvious.

Based on the R&D level and preliminary accumulation in the field of cell 
therapy, traditional Chinese medicine and plasma therapy in China, the clinical 
trials of the three therapies organized by the "Joint Prevention and Control 
Group" have been gradually carried out, and they are playing significant role 
in curing critically ill patients.

For the purpose of providing more cutting-edge and effective solutions to the 
epidemic using stem cell therapy, the leaders of the MOST went to the 
Innovation Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine of the Chinese 
Academy of Science to confirm their progressing. A new cellular drug called 
CAStem supposed to cure COVID-19 was created, and it has already made major 
progress in the experiment about the treatment of the severe acute respiratory 
distress syndrome (ARDS) previously. The research team has applied for 
emergency approval from China National Medical Products Administration, and it 
is cooperating with relevant medical institutions. So far, the CAStem has 
already been approved by the Ethics Committee, and is ongoing clinical 
observation and evaluation.

An emergency project titled "Clinical Study on the Prevention and Treatment of 
COVID-19 by Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine" was officially launched on 
February 3 with the support from the MOST. "The positive curative effect has 
been shown in treating COVID-19," said Zhang Boli, the project leader and the 
headmaster of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It was 
reported that a total of 23 patients had been cured and discharged from Hubei 
Provincial Hospital of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine and Wuhan 
Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

With regard to the field of plasma therapy, China National Biotech Group has 
completed the collection of plasma from some convalescent patients, as well as 
the preparation of special immune plasma products and special immune globulin 
of novel coronavirus on February 13. Through strict blood biosafety testing, 
virus inactivation, and antiviral activity testing, etc., special immune plasma 
has been successfully prepared for clinical treatment and has already been put 
into clinical treatment of severely ill patients.

In terms of field of vaccine research and development, the Chinese Center for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had successfully isolated the first 
COVID-19 virus strain on January 24, which was recognized by the World Health 
Organization and other international agencies. Several new type of vaccines for 
COVID-19 have started the animal testing phase, which bring hope to all.

SOURCE: Science and Technology Daily