Breakthrough in Covid-19 battle

ISOLATION: SCIENTISTS ONE STEP CLOSER TO VACCINE

Structure of virus can now be studied in more detail.

Scientists at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) have come face-to-face with the local Sars-CoV-2 virus and independent scientists believe this breakthrough is significant as it brought local scientists one step closer to enhancing South Africa’s capacity to develop diagnostics and antiviral compounds.

The successful isolation and capturing of the virus was achieved by culturing the virus in a high biocontainment facility, the NICD’s biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratory, one of the most advanced integrated high and maximum facility on the African continent.

The successful isolation of the virus was confirmed by observing changes in the cell lines used to grow the virus, called a cytopathic effect.

NICD said that confirmation that this was Sars-CoV-2 was done by specific diagnostic molecular assay, with the cultured virus spotted and photographed under a high-powered electron microscope.

The virus particle of Sars-CoV-2, with a “crown” of peplomers, characteristic for the coronavirus genus, was cultured from a South African Covid-19 patient.

The capacity to culture SarsCoV-2 from local Covid-19 cases was developed in the past few weeks by Professor Janusz Paweska and his team at the NICD. “It will allow scientists to better understand the basic virology and pathogenicity of this novel coronavirus and enhance South Africa’s capacity to develop diagnostics and antiviral compounds,” the institute said in a statement.

The scientists added there was also the possibility of using laboratory-grown virus for the local development of inactivated or live-attenuated Covid-19 vaccines and contribute to effective disease prevention and control.

Professor Glenda Davison, head of the biomedical sciences department at Cape Peninsula University of Technology and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town, said this was “exciting work”.

She said the isolation of the virus was an important breakthrough for SA as the structure of the virus and how it operates could now be studied in more detail.

“One important advantage of growing the virus in a laboratory is that scientists can now perform experiments which may lead to the development of a Covid-19 vaccine,” she said.

Dr Atiya Mosam, an independent public health medicine specialist, said this meant the NICD scientists had managed to isolate the local strain of the virus.

She said this was a significant development because as viruses spread, they mutate and may therefore behave differently to the original. For example, they can be more or less contagious.

“Therefore, knowing what the local strain is allows us to study the virus and the way it transmits and infects people, which can give us insight into the measures that we need to take,” Mosam said.

It will allow scientists to understand the coronavirus