Costa Rica in the Race to Find Effective Treatment Against COVID-19

Costa Rica, the dental tourism mecca in America, is part of the many countries that are desperately looking for an effective treatment against COVID-19. 

This little gem of a country has a research institute responsible for the production of snake anti-ophidic serums and scientific research on serpents and their venoms, as well as educational and extension programs in rural areas and hospitals. 

Finding a Possible Treatment Against COVID-19

This institute is called The Clodomiro Picado Research Institute, named in honor after the Costa Rican scientist Clodomiro Picado Twight. With their antivenom serums, the institute and Costa Rica save between 10,000 and 20,000 lives worldwide. The bottles of the serum are shipped to Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Nicaragua and other countries.

As part of the search in finding treatment for COVID-19, this institute, along with the Costa Rican Social Security Organization (CCSS) and the Ministry of Health, have decided to follow three lines of research and development to find a possible treatment for COVID-19.

The studies include the analysis of the already recovered cases, for the creation of a possible solution, according to the executive president of the CCSS, Román Macaya.

First option: Convalescent Plasma Therapy

“The first option is to use convalescent plasma therapy, in which you take blood from a patient who is already recovered, to separate the part where the antibodies that fought the virus are from their plasma and transfuse it to a patient who has active COVID-19”.

Second option: Injecting Antibiodies into Sick Patients

The second investigation that is being carried out follows the same line of using the blood of a recovered patient, purifying the antibodies produced, standardizing the neutralizing power of the virus and injecting it into a sick patient.

Third option: Antibiodies Against Virus’ Proteins

Macaya mentioned a third possibility, in which the daily work of the Clodomiro Picado would need to be adapted for this emergency.

“The third option is the one used by the institute every day in the generation and production of anti-ophidic serum, only in this case, instead of generating antibodies against the venom of a snake, it will be generating antibodies against virus’ proteins”, he claimed.

All three scenarios are being investigated; however, according to the chief of the Costa Rica Social Security Organization, progress is very fast and there have even been international contacts on the subject.

“This is a country capacity that must be used. There are very few countries in the world that have the skills and experience that the Clodomiro Picado Institute has to do precisely this patient treatment strategy, ” Macaya concluded.

Costa Rica is also working with the WHO to create a repository that facilitates the access and use of the intellectual property of technologies to detect, prevent, control and treat the COVID-19 pandemic.