Moscow, Mar 6: A Russian transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday, killing all 32 people on board, Russian news agencies cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying.
The ministry was cited as saying that the plane crashed at Russia's Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province and that initial information suggested the crash may have been caused by a technical fault.
It was quoted as saying that 26 passengers and six crew members were on board.
Washington, May 20: The United States recorded another 1,536 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker said.
That figure, tallied as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT), raises to 91,845 the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the US.
The US tops the global rankings both for the highest death toll and the highest number of infections, with more than 1.5 million cases.
Melbourne, Apr 10: Scientists have identified six drug candidates from more than 10,000 compounds that may help treat COVID-19.
The research, published in the journal Nature, tested the efficacy of approved drugs, drug candidates in clinical trials and other compounds.
"Currently there are no targeted therapeutics or effective treatment options for COVID-19," said Professor Luke Guddat from the University of Queensland in Australia.
"In order to rapidly discover lead compounds for clinical use, we initiated a programme of high-throughput drug screening, both in laboratories and also using the latest computer software to predict how different drugs bind to the virus," Guddat said.
The project targeted the main COVID-19 virus enzyme, known as the main protease or Mpro, which plays a pivotal role in mediating viral replication, the researchers said.
This makes it an attractive drug target for this virus, and as people don't naturally have this enzyme, compounds that target it are likely to have low toxicity, they said.
"We add the drugs directly to the enzyme or to cell cultures growing the virus and assess how much of each compound is required to stop the enzyme from working or to kill the virus. If the amount is small, then we have a promising compound for further studies," said Guddat.
After assaying thousands of drugs, researchers found of the six that appear to be effective in inhibiting the enzyme, one is of particular interest.
"We're particularly looking at several leads that have been subjected to clinical trials including for the prevention and treatment of various disorders such as cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, stroke, atherosclerosis and cancer," Guddat said.
Researchers said compounds that are already along the pipeline to drug discovery are preferred, as they can be further tested as antivirals at an accelerated rate compared to new drug leads that would have to go through this process from scratch.
"With continued and up-scaled efforts we are optimistic that new candidates can enter the COVID-19 drug discovery pipeline in the near future," Guddat said.
Madrid, Apr 4: Spain recorded a second successive daily drop in coronavirus-related deaths with 809 fatalities, official figures showed Saturday.
The total number of deaths in Spain now stands at 11,744, second only to Italy. A record 950 people died on Thursday.
The number of new cases also slowed at 7,026, taking the total to 124,736.
Recoveries over the last 24 hours stood at 3,706, taking that total to 34,219.
The Madrid region was the worst affected accounting for 40 percent of the deaths, 4,723, and 29 percent of the cases at 36,249. The northeastern region of Catalonia was in second place with 2,508 deaths.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is due to decide whether to prolong the emergency measures and confinement declared on March 14 for another two weeks in order to get on top of the outbreak.
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