Production of covid-19 treatment made in Costa Rica possibly increased to 25,000 units

The medicine made with equine immunoglobulins could constitute an eventual treatment for covid-19 patients.
- Clodomiro Picado Research Institute courtesy photo -

Published Monday, August 31, 2020

Production of covid-19 treatment made
in Costa Rica possibly increased
to 25,000 units

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

On Friday, the $500,000 donation agreement was signed from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, CABEI, to the Clodomiro Picado Research Institute of the UCR, which could increase the production of treatment against covid-19 from 600 to 25,000 units in short time.

CABEI headquarters in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has regional branches in six Central American countries: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

With the signing of the contract, between Mauricio Chacón, representative of the bank and Isabel Martínez, representative of the Foundation of the University of Costa Rica, the delivery of the donation that will help advance the production of a therapeutic formulation of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 is consolidated.

"This economic injection means a great contribution both for the institute's researchers in the continuity of their work and for the Costa Rican community in the search for solutions for public health in the face of the covid-19 pandemic," the Foundation said in its statement.

According to President Carlos Alvarado, in addition to this donation, the government is in the process of establishing an additional budget through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications. "We want to go from having six horses to 30, and going from a production of 600 units to about 25,000," Alvarado said.

On Aug. 13, the bank approved a donation to the institute to increase the production of the treatment based on antibodies against covid-19.

According to CABEI, the donation is part of a $2,500,000 fund distributed equitably among it’s immediate partner countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The money is to help aid each country in facing the emergency caused by the pandemic.

"Since the beginning of the health crisis in the region, CABEI has focused on assisting in different ways through the implementation of the Emergency Support and Preparedness Program for Covid-19 and the Economic Reactivation program," said Dante Mossi, Executive President of CABEI. "We are pleased to know that Costa Rica will use this new cooperation in clinical research that will allow it to fight covid-19."

This donation was made after the Costa Rican government began to seek funds to strengthen their treatment production, the institute said in its statement.

According to Alberto Alape-Girón, Ph.D., ICP-UCR researcher, the donation will produce the amount of medicine that the country needs and, eventually, supply other countries in Central America.

On Aug. 10, the first batch of 80 units of covid-19 treatment made by Costa Rican scientists was delivered to Social Security.

The medicine made with equine immunoglobulins could constitute an eventual treatment for patients with covid-19, announced the Social Security.

The next step is to carry out the clinical research phase that will be developed in the Specialized Center for the Care of Covid-19 Patients, known as the Covid Hospital, at the San Juan de Dios, Mexico and Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia hospitals, announced Román Macaya-Hayes, president of Social Security.

The goal is to give the patients a very strict follow-up that guarantees the evolution of the disease to try to confirm, with reliable statistical numbers, if the treatment developed by the scientists makes a favorable difference in the evolution of the disease.

In July, specialists from George Mason University, in Virginia, U.S.A., confirmed that the treatment developed by Costa Rican scientists is capable of inhibiting the infectivity of the SARS-Cov2 coronavirus, which produces the covid-19.

Costa Rican scientists sent samples of the treatment to George Mason to obtain an alternative result of the effectiveness of the treatment against covid-19 in cells.

George Mason University is considered one of the best biosafety laboratories in the U.S. for testing live viruses in an environment with all the conditions of isolation and biosecurity. The university lab is currently demonstrating that this plasma neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 and that it is 100 times more powerful than convalescent plasma obtained from humans, the university said in its statement.

"The results clearly demonstrate that the horses produced a large number of antibodies that block the entry of the virus into human cells," Girón said. "This indicates that the drug can be very efficient and that the amount that will be required to treat patients would be relatively low.”

According to Carlos Araya, Director of the Costa Rican University, the treatment developed at the institute is applied to people infected with covid-19 preventing them from getting worse.

Given the successful results in the analysis, both in Costa Rica and in the U.S., the human portion of the testing is meant to test its effectiveness.

The goal is that the results match those expected by scientists. If successful, specialists hope to treat all hospitalized and infected patients sick with the virus in the country.

Time runs as health authorities continue to find a cure for covid-19 while cases and deaths increase due to the virus.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Ministry of Health provided the following statistics on the status of the virus in the country:

• 1,214 new covid-19 cases, bringing the total to 23,544 active cases. The ages of patients infected range from a three-month-old baby to a 99-year-old person.

• 9,249 foreign-born have been infected of the 39,699 cases since March, approximately 23.8% of the total cases.

• 413 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 133 patients are in Intensive Care Units in delicate health conditions, 280 patients are in recovery rooms. Most of the infected patients are quarantined in their homes.

• 15,737 coronavirus patients have fully recovered, which is a 39.6% recovery rate.

• 92,046 people have been ruled out.

• 146,047 medical covid-19 tests have been made.

• 418 deaths of people infected with covid-19 since March, approximately 1.1% death rate. Of these 160 were women and 258 men. The ages range from 21 to a 100-year-old person.

Since July 30, the ministry announced they will not provide updated information on immigrants who die from covid-19 in the country. Up to then, authorities reported 30 foreign-born people had died from that virus since March.

Readers can see the updated number of total patients in each district at the National Distance Education University on its Covid-19 Map.

As of Sunday night, the pandemic has killed 845,054 patients worldwide, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

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Should Social Security speed up the application of the treatment to covid-19 patients? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com