On Tuesday, June 7, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and Mitacs signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, according to which 60 students will do internships under the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship program this summer, Ukrainian Ambassador Yulia Kovaliv said.
“600 Ukrainian students and scientists will be able to do internships at Canadian universities. A memorandum of cooperation was signed today by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and Mitacs, and this summer 60 students will be doing internships under the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship program,” she wrote on Twitter on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday.
Kovaliv thanked the Government of Canada and Mitacs for supporting Ukraine and for the decision to stop scientific ties and cooperation with Russian institutions.
Scientists and doctors from Ukraine, the United States and Italy exchanged the results of the latest scientific research in the fight against coronavirus and confirmed the effectiveness of antiviral drugs in the fight against COVID-19.
“The problem of combating the pandemic is relevant both for Ukraine and for the whole world. In our country, the number of COVID-19 cases is growing daily. And although the immunization of the population is quite active, none of the vaccines guarantees that a person will not get sick. The issue of prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in the early stages is now extremely relevant,” the scientists said, following the results of the scientific and practical conference entitled “New Treatment Strategies for COVID-19,” organized by the pharmaceutical company Farmak (Kyiv).
At the conference, scientists discussed the development of new and effective existing medicines that help treat patients with COVID-19. In particular, they paid special attention to the results of studies of antiviral drugs that demonstrated a therapeutic effect, shared their experience of partnership in the development of a direct-acting antiviral drug, talked about the prospects for the development of other antiviral drugs.
“How do antiviral drugs work? The virus is much smaller than bacteria, but this does not prevent it from destroying cells. People often mistakenly believe that antibiotics can neutralize the virus, but this is not the case. It is important to understand that antibiotics are effective only against certain types of bacteria. Antiviral agents are used to quickly and effectively deal with the virus. At the beginning of the disease, they reduce the symptoms and shorten the duration of the disease. It should also be understood that such drugs prevent it from multiplying,” the scientists said.
Italian scientist, doctor of the Ronzoni Institute for Chemical and Biochemical Research Stefano Elli, in particular, said that antiviral drugs have great potential in the fight against a pandemic. He presented a study showing the effect of Enisamium on SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Enisamium is better known as the active ingredient of Farmak pharmaceutical company.
“According to the results of preclinical and clinical studies, Enisamium has confirmed its effectiveness. Prescribing the drug to patients with moderate severity of COVID-19 made it possible to alleviate the course of the disease in the subjects, prevent the deterioration of its clinical condition, avoid deaths and shorten the length of hospital stay,” Elli said.
According to the representative of the state enterprise State Expert Center Pavlo Babich, the positive experience of using this drug is confirmed by the results of a study on its use among patients with moderate COVID-19.
“Studies have shown that an antiviral drug successfully used in the treatment of influenza and acute respiratory viral infections in 11 countries of the world and, as it was recently established, by the joint efforts of scientists from Ukraine, Germany, the U.K., is also clinically effective in moderate COVID-19. Indeed, the drug has a wide spectrum of antiviral action against RNA viruses that cause acute respiratory diseases by inhibiting the RNA polymerase enzyme of the virus, under the influence of which it replicates,” he said.
“According to the results of research by scientists from the United States, Italy and Ukraine, it can be summarized that antiviral drugs are a powerful weapon in overcoming and preventing the negative consequences of COVID-19,” the scientists said.
A team of Ukrainian researchers, which included scientists from JSC Farmak pharmaceutical company and the Hromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, have developed a PCR test capable of detecting even new strains of the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus. According to the company’s press release, the availability of technological equipment purchased by Farmak allowed for the first time in Ukraine to carry out the sequencing procedure. This is “reading” the sequence of nucleotides in the RNA of the virus “as spelling a text.”
“Sequencing allows, in case of revealing differences in the genetic text (mutations), to draw conclusions about the presence of new strains of the virus. The results of the study, in fact, confirmed the presence of a new strain of coronavirus in Ukraine,” the researchers said.
The results of the study, as well as information about the virus strains circulating in Ukraine since the beginning of the pandemic, have already been posted in the GISAID international initiative promoting the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and the coronavirus causing COVID-19.
Farmak said that on March 3, the research team confirmed that the new PCR test system developed by the pharmaceutical company’s specialists, in addition to the already widespread strains, also detects the new UK variant of coronavirus.
The Farmak test system was based on the TaqPath COVID 19 RT PCR Kit (Thermo Scientific, the United States), which is authorized by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA). High quality components made in the United States are used for the production of the new SARS-CoV-2 test kit.
The quality of the new test kit is confirmed by the relevant findings of the Hromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv) and the Mechnikov Institute of Microbiology and Immunology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Kharkiv). Reference trials of the PCR test kit are carried out in private and public laboratories in Ukraine (Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia), confirming its effectiveness.
Farmak said that the new test kit has opened up to pre-purchasing.
