RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Another potential coronavirus treatment. Israeli biotech Redhill has announced that another of its pipeline medicines RHB-107 (upamostat) is to be tested by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) against SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19. (Redhill’s Opaganib is already saving lives.)
https://www.redhillbio.com/RedHill/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=178&FID=2432&PID=0&IID=15260
 
US patent for coronavirus vaccine. (TY Richard) Tel Aviv University Professor Jonathan Gershoni has been granted a US patent for technology to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The vaccine targets the coronavirus’s Achilles’ heel, its Receptor Binding Motif (RBM), which the virus uses to bind to and infect a target cell.
https://english.tau.ac.il/news/covid19-Jonathan-Gershoni
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-grants-israeli-prof-patent-for-tech-that-could-see-virus-vaccine-in-months/
 
Giving coronavirus patients a LIFT. Scientists from Israel’s Technion Institute have developed Liquid Foam Therapy (LIFT). It improves the distribution across the lungs of surfactant, the liquid that coats the surface of alveoli in the lungs,. COVID-19 kills the cells that secrete surfactant, making it harder to breathe.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3807833,00.html
 
Protecting intubated patients. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Hospitech produces the AnapnoGuard (reported here previously) which seals the trachea of intubated patients and protects them against Ventilator Associated Pneumonia. It was in use in China before the coronavirus outbreak and is now in use in 5 Israeli hospitals.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-startup-protects-coronavirus-intubate-patients-from-complications-624552
 
Recovered from Covid-19. A 45-year-old coronavirus patient at Jerusalem’s Wolfson hospital woke up from a 29-day coma. A 22-year-old regained consciousness after a three-week coma. A 94-year-old Jerusalem woman has recovered from Covid-19. And Eli Beer, CEO of United Hatzalah returned home to Israel after his recovery.
https://worldisraelnews.com/45-year-old-israeli-wakes-up-from-coronavirus-coma/
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/florida/eli-beer-recovered-from-coronavirus-coming-back-to-israel/2020/04/21/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnD3FtoGeiw
 
Successful caesarian birth. A seriously ill corona patient, 32-week’s pregnant and on ventilation, gave birth to a healthy 5.2lb baby via cesarean section in the isolation ward at Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat (Safed).
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-israeli-hospital-drama-as-corona-patient-gives-birth-via-cesarean/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-yhawq-8WM
 
The first new antibiotic in 3 decades. Israel’s Regina Barzilay co-led an MIT team that used artificial intelligence to discover Halicin – the first entirely new antibiotic molecule in 30 years. It kills two of the most dangerous and durable bacteria which (unlike with other antibiotics) were unable to develop resistance to it.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3808712,00.html
 
The meaning of life. As the cell’s protein factory, the ribosome is the only natural machine that manufactures its own parts and is key to explaining how life develops. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute are now able to demonstrate the self-synthesis and assembly of the small subunit of a ribosome on a surface of a chip.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/self-synthesizing-ribosome
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/16/eaaz6020/
 
National breastmilk bank saves preemie. A premature infant at Haifa’s Carmel Medical Center became the first baby to receive donated milk from Magen David Adom’s new national milk bank. The baby was unable to digest formula milk and his mother was unable to nurse him. The baby is now doing well and gaining weight.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/278984

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/494633-israel-has-lots-at-stake-with-annexation

With Israel’s new “unity” government now set, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a decision in the coming weeks with huge consequences for Israel’s relations with America and the wider world: whether to begin the process of annexing major parts of the West Bank.

That’s because an Israeli decision to pursue annexation would strike at the heart of a longstanding belief in major world capitals that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement establishing permanent borders between the two sides will result from direct negotiations, not unilateral action.

The decision will prove controversial enough in Jerusalem, much less overseas, because the two men who are to share power for the next three years – the Likud bloc’s Netanyahu and the Blue and White bloc’s Benny Gantz – don’t agree on the issue.

Netanyahu has long promised to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, while Gantz has been inconsistent on the matter. He has long opposed unilateral action to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but he expressed support this year for the Jordan Valley’s annexation while conditioning it on international coordination – even though the international community largely opposes annexation of any kind.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/RIGHT-FROM-WRONG-Hell-hath-no-fury-like-Bibi-haters-scorned-625706

According to a Channel 13 poll, most Israelis support the coalition deal signed on Monday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz. The numbers (62% in favor and 22% opposed) are not surprising. 
 
Following three Knesset elections that ended in deadlock and numerous negotiations that led to nowhere, the public is both fed up and beaten down. The prospect of returning to the ballot box for a fourth time – particularly with the country in the throes of the coronavirus crisis – made the very inking of the Netanyahu-Gantz agreement for an “emergency national unity government” palatable. Under any other circumstances, the deal in question would be cause for dismay, if not outrage. 
 
With more than a quarter of the workforce unemployed and small businesses bankrupt due to forced closures, the provision for 36 ministers and up to 16 deputy ministers – not to mention a second official Prime Minister’s Residence – is pretty shocking to taxpayers of all ideological stripes. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the deal, which requires the changing of Basic Laws, will pass muster with the Supreme Court. 

https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/why-trump-should-not-send-corona-aid-to-palestinians/2020/04/21/

President Trump’s decision to send millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority is a grave mistake. Although motivated by humanitarian sentiment, the aid package will serve a very different purpose — it will free up funds for the PA to continue paying salaries to terrorists.

The reason that the United States cut off economic aid to the PA in the first place was precisely because providing that aid allowed the PA to maintain its policy of paying more than $134-million to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of dead and released terrorists.

The legislation mandating the cut-off, called the Taylor Force Act, was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in early 2018. The law did not cut off only aid that was used directly to pay terrorists. The law cut off all U.S. economic aid — because aid is fungible, so even aid which goes to, say, hospitals, frees the PA from having to help those hospitals, so it can use the money instead for terrorists.

And that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

The Trump Administration announced on April 16 that it will — through some legal loophole — send $5-million in American taxpayer money to PA hospitals to help cope with the coronavirus crisis. Sounds like a kind humanitarian gesture. But it’s badly misguided.

That $5-million is money which the PA would have otherwise had to pay, since obviously, it’s not going to let its hospitals collapse, especially in the midst of the crisis. So the PA will be able to turn around and apportion another $5-million to its “Pay for Slay” program.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Positive coronavirus treatment news. Six critically ill Israeli coronavirus patients with organ failure are still alive after 1-week’s Pluristem’s PLX cell-therapy in three separate Israeli medical centers. Four show improved respiratory parameters – three of those could soon be weaned off ventilators with two showing clinical recovery.  

Latest – The first critically ill US coronavirus patient has received Pluristem’s treatment (in New Jersey).

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-covid-19-treatment-shows-100-percent-survival-rate-preliminary-data-624058 
 
Italy approves Israeli coronavirus treatment. (TY JNS) Italy has approved Opaganib from Israel’s Redhill Biopharma to treat some 160 severe COVID-19 patients with severe respiratory problems at three hospitals in northern Italy. Phase2 tests on 131 US patients were positive and two critically ill Israeli patients are improving.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-israeli-covid-19-patients-improve-in-experimental-drug-trial/
 
Passive vaccine saves 29-year-old coronavirus patient. (TY Hazel) A 29-year-old coronavirus patient in Ashdod has improved from serious to serious but stable condition, after receiving multiple doses of plasma from a donor who recovered from coronavirus. Another patient who received plasma has also improved.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/29-year-old-among-first-to-be-treated-with-MDA-passive-vaccine-624353  https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israels-MDA-to-treat-coronavirus-patients-with-new-passive-vaccine-623172
 
Targeting coronavirus proteins. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute are working with a UK laboratory and others to develop an anti-viral treatment that targets Protease – a protein essential for coronavirus activity.  Meanwhile, Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists are testing many chemicals against similar proteins.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/science-will-conquer-this-inside-the-race-for-a-coronavirus-treatment/
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/accelerated-oxford-weizmann-project-aims-to-identify-anti-covid-19-drug-in-weeks-1.498547  
 
Decoys to trap coronavirus. Technion scientists are using their NanoGhost technology(reported here) to send NanoGhost stem cells into the lungs. The coronavirus cells then bind with the NanoGhost decoy cells rather than the cells in the lung, thus reducing the ability of the virus to propagate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koxdcMVnDA4
 
Radar for the lungs. Israel’s Sensible Medical has developed a radar-based system that continuously monitors a patient’s lung fluid levels to prevent deterioration. It has already in operation in four Italian hospitals and a US hospital has bought 20 units. Israel is also about to adopt it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8v1GKdeKa0
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3804703,00.html  https://sensible-medical.com/
 
New coronavirus test is 10 times faster. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed and implemented a new test for coronavirus infections that is much faster, cheaper and hasn’t the resource issues of current tests. It extracts RNA from swabs as now, but with a magnetic bead-based cleanup process called SPRI.
https://www.jwire.com.au/hebrew-university-researchers-develop-a-covid-19-diagnostic-test-10x-faster/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuWu9uGrmrk
 
Recovered. The many critically ill Israeli coronavirus patients being cured include a couple from Ashkelon aged 90 and 87 who can now celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. Also, Eli Beer, CEO of Israel’s United Hatzalah has awoken from a coma.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-couple-aged-90-87-recover-from-covid-19-in-ashkelon/
https://worldisraelnews.com/united-hatzalah-of-israel-founder-awakens-from-coronavirus-coma/
 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/right-from-wrong-israels-no-exit-strategy-624890

Hebrew memes circulating on social media poked fun at the current form of warfare, which involves not charging at the enemy with tanks and rifles, but rather binging on Netflix and junk food.
The battle between the Israeli Health Ministry and Finance Ministry over the lifting of coronavirus-spurred lockdowns is heated. Early on in the crisis, when schools, malls and office buildings closed last month, government officials projected that life would resume some semblance of normalcy in the immediate aftermath of Passover.
 
It was a mid-April date on which parents pinned hopes and to which everyone looked forward. But to no avail. The kids are still home, stores remain shut and freedom of movement feels like a thing of the distant past.
 
To counter bouts of anxiety, loneliness and cabin fever – amid a rise in COVID-19 deaths and a drop in employment – we Israelis initially turned to humor. Hebrew memes circulating on social media poked fun at the current form of warfare, which involves not charging at the enemy with tanks and rifles, but rather binging on Netflix and junk food.
 
Growing fat is not the only reason that our patience has begun to wear thin, however.
 
ALONGSIDE A general societal willingness to adopt inconvenient habits to contain the ultra-contagious virus that strikes “grandmas and grandpas” with a vengeance, there is a gnawing sense that health authorities are going a bit too far in their doomsday scenarios.

Defending their demand for increasingly stringent measures to “flatten the coronavirus curve,” these authorities often appear oblivious to the ills of a demolished economy and mass demoralization.
 
The perilous side effects are already evident. Indeed, in a matter of weeks, more than a quarter of the workforce suddenly found itself with no income, business owners became poverty-stricken overnight, domestic violence spiked drastically and the ERAN organization hotline for emotional first aid has been ringing off the hook.