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An experimental drug may cure long Covid, medics believe after a 59-year-old man given the medicine saw his symptoms fade within hours.
Doctors at a hospital in Germany gave the drug — originally designed to fight heart failure — to treat the patient’s glaucoma.
The team thought the way the medication works could also help to combat the eye disease, which can eventually lead to blindness.
They then realised the BC 007 drug could also be of use in fighting off long Covid because it neutralises auto-antibodies, which attack the body and are common in coronavirus survivors plagued with persistent symptoms.
The unidentified man’s lasting symptoms — fatigue, loss of taste and concentration problems — all improved rapidly.
Doctors in Bavaria who treated him said: ‘Even within a few hours an improvement became apparent.’
Scientists who made the discovery will now trial the drug to determine if its success at curing long-Covid symptoms can be repeated.
BC 007 – the drug that cured a man’s long-Covid symptoms – is administered through a single-dose infusion. A price for the treatment has not yet been determined, as it is in clinical trials. The drug was developed by Berlin Cures to neutralise auto-antibodies in people with heart failure
Little is known about long-Covid — an umbrella term encompassing symptoms that persist for more than a month.
Different studies have estimated that between 10 and 75 per cent of Covid patients suffer from the condition — including up to 2million Britons.
Scientists have found that sufferers have higher numbers of auto-antibodies, which are proteins produced by the immune system that attack organs.
These are different from antibodies, which are stored by the immune system to fight off diseases such as coronavirus.
German firm Berlin Cures developed BC 007 to clear up auto-antibodies in patients with heart failure.
The drug is currently in the second phase of clinical trials and has yet to be brought to market, so how much it will cost remains a mystery.
It works by sticking to the auto-antibodies and destroying them, preventing them from attacking organs in the body, according to Berlin Cures.
The doctors said this process would make it possible to render the auto-antibodies harmless and could possibly improve blood circulation.
For this reason, Dr Bettina Hohberger, from the Erlangen Eye Clinic, planned to use BC 007 on her glaucoma patients, who also have high levels of auto-antibodies, which reduce blood flow in the eye.
Glaucoma is a condition where the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain, becomes damaged by a fluid build-up in the front part of the eye.
The condition — which is most common in people in their 70s and 80s — can lead to blindness if not treated early.
Dr Hohberger said: ‘We already know one of these autoantibodies from glaucoma and know it has a bad effect on the blood circulation in the eye.’
Previous studies had already identified long-Covid sufferers have auto-antibodies in their system.
Dr Hohberger gave BC 007 to a 59-year-old man, who was suffering with long-term glaucoma and long-Covid symptoms, through a single dose infusion.
He stayed at the Erlangen University Hospital for three days.
The patient’s sense of taste and difficulty concentrating ‘disappeared’, his auto-antibody levels dropped and the blood flow to his eyes ‘improved significantly’, the doctors said.
The experts said they will now use the drug in wider trials to determine its effectiveness.
Dr Christian Mardin, who is in charge of the eye clinic, revealed they can’t treat more people with the drug ‘because it has not yet passed all approval studies’.
Blood flow problems are thought to be at the root of the long-Covid conundrum, with researchers at the the Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine in Germany identifying changes to the shape of blood cells in people who have the condition.
They released findings last week that claimed the virus changes the size and stiffness of red and white blood cells, which make it harder to get oxygen and nutrients around the body.
They believe the disruption to oxygen flow is the root of the common symptoms which plague long Covid patients — breathing issues, tiredness and headaches.
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