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, Apr 2: The total US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 4,000 early Wednesday, more than double the number from three days earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The number of deaths was 4,076 -- more than twice the 2,010 recorded late Saturday.
More than 40 percent of recorded deaths nationally were in New York state, the Johns Hopkins data showed.
On Tuesday the United States exceeded the number of deaths in China, where the pandemic emerged in December before spreading worldwide.
The number of confirmed US cases has reached 189,510, the most in the world, though Italy and Spain have recorded more fatalities.
After initially downplaying the threat from new coronavirus in the early stages of the US outbreak, President Donald Trump warned of "a very, very painful two weeks" to come for the country on Tuesday.
Tehran, Jul 1 As many as 19 people have been killed in an explosion and fire at a medical facility in Tehran.
A total of 19 people, including 15 men and 4 women, were killed in the explosion, the emergency services confirmed, RT reported citing KhabarOnline website.
According to a regional official, a gas leak caused the incident. Sputnik quoted a deputy head of Tehran police as saying to YJC news outlet that oxygen tanks exploded in the semi-basement of the clinic.
Canadian researchers are developing a DNA vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and has currently infected nearly 5,00,000 people worldwide and crippled the global economy.
Entos Pharmaceuticals, a health-care biotechnology company headed by a University of Alberta researchers, develop new therapeutic compounds using the company's proprietary drug-delivery platform and has begun manufacturing vaccine candidates against the novel coronavirus.
"Given the urgency of the situation, we can have a lead candidate vaccine within two months. Once we have that it's a race to get it into clinical trials," said John Lewis, CEO of Entos and a Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Lewis said in comparison to a traditional vaccine, DNA-based vaccines hold several advantages.
Nucleic acids are introduced directly into the patient's own cells, causing them to make pieces of the virus--tricking the immune system into mounting a response without the full virus actually being present, the researcher said.
According to the company, the approach is recognised as being easier to move into large-scale manufacturing, offers improved vaccine stability and works without needing an infectious agent.
In the current absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, several companies around the world are mounting efforts to begin similar work.
The first clinical trial using a DNA-based vaccine developed by Moderna Inc.in the US on March 13.
Their approach allows for antibodies to be made in the human trial volunteers against a specific protein on the surface of the coronavirus that lets the virus enter human cells.
The hope is that the antibodies will stop the interaction.
Though this approach is designed to be effective against COVID-19 specifically, Lewis said Entos is taking a different tack.
The company plans to use plasmid DNA to amplify the production of key coronavirus surface and structural proteins with each injection, with an eye to the bigger picture.
"Many of the structural proteins in the virus are pretty well conserved across all the coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," said Lewis.
"We're hoping that if we express more of the structural proteins that are common to most coronaviruses, we can inhibit the current COVID-19, and also potentially protect against all coronaviruses both past and future," Lewis added.
To move the project forward quickly, the company is seeking financial support from both provincial and federal levels of government.
"We have the opportunity to save a lot of lives, and I think it's really upon us and governments to find solutions for that," Lewis said.
Comments
Add new comment