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As of now, there is still no definitive cure for coronavirus and scientists are scrambling to find and develop a cure. Papua New Guinea is also on the search for a cure as its government has allocated $3 million to an unknown firm to find a possible COVID-19 cure.
Papua New Guinea has given $3 million to a company known as Niugini BioMed Ltd., which was established back in August. The funds will be used for research to discover a possible cure for COVID-19 from existing drugs. This report was found from leaked documents in contrast to Prime Minister James Marape saying that the country’s national executive council has not yet completed its approval process to assign a company to find a possible COVID-19 cure.
So far, a team from the University of Papua New Guinea was claimed to have looked through 30,000 known drugs all over the world to identify 10 possible COVID-19 treatments. The cabinet submission that presented the claim was also signed by Marape, will instruct the ministers, its treasury, and finance to give $10.2 million kinas or around $2.8 million. The submission also instructs its health department to collaborate with the company assigned to start running clinical trials.
“We have young and competent PNG scientists, who have presented their case to the COVID-19 controller...and our medical and science community, that they may be on to something big,” said Marape. “It may be true, or vice-versa, but I am not a prime minister to kill ingenuity, research, science, and study.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, a $375 million deal was brokered with company Eli Lilly to provide 300,000 doses of its experimental antibody drug to possibly treat COVID-19. The deal details that the company has two months to deliver the doses after being given an emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. It also gives the government an option to buy 650,000 more doses all the way through June 30, said the company.
Eli Lilly filed a request to the FDA this month for an emergency use authorization of its drug to be used on COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate cases.
