Anthony Pratt donates $1m for virus ‘silver-bullet solution’ as doctors look to solve ventilator dilemma

Australia’s richest man, Anthony Pratt, is backing a trial of HIV and arthritis drugs that could be used to stop the coronavirus pandemic.

Australia’s richest man is backing a trial of HIV and arthritis drugs that could help control the coronavirus pandemic.

Melbourne businessman Anthony Pratt has pledged $1 million for the trial, which will be conducted by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity,The Australianreports.

The trial will be carried out at 60 hospitals across Australia where it will be used on patients to help in the treatment of coronavirus.

Mr Pratt told The Australian that the fight against COVID-19 needed “a call to arms” from Australia’s wealthiest people.

“Bushfires unfortunately happen every year but this is a one-in-100-year event, so this is a call to arms for people to contribute more now,” Mr Pratt, who is Executive Chairman of Visy Industries and Pratt Industries, said.

‘A call to arms.’ Australian businessman Anthony Pratt has put $1 million to find a cure to COVID-19. Picture: Nick Klein

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We are hoping for a silver-bullet solution. We need to do something, and preferably something within 60 days. On a wider level though, people who can should step up in this situation.”

Scientists at the Doherty Institute became the first lab outside China to decode the COVID-19 structure and distribute the data to labs worldwide in January.

DOCTORS TO SOLVE VENTILATOR DILEMMA

As US clinicians warn of the need to ration ventilators in Intensive Care Units, the UK is fast-tracking the development of other devices that can be used to treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

University College in London (UCL) is working with manufacturers on the development of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) breathing devices, which can obviate the need for some patients to be put on ventilators.

In a joint statement, doctors and professors from UCL said that CPAP machines could be used on patients who could still breathe normally, and hence free up ventilators for those who were more critically ill.

CPAP, the UCL group stated, “feels similar to breathing while having your head out the window of a moving car”.

“COVID-19 causes a Pneumontis, an inflammation of the lining of the lungs. The small buds in the lungs responsible for oxygen transport, alveoli, can collapse and the inflammation can slow down oxygen transport. A severe pneumonitis will lead to a lack of oxygen being transported into the blood stream from a breath drawn into the lungs. Oxygen in the blood stream keeps all of the organs in the body alive and working.

A file picture of a person using a CPAP device. Doctors think using more of these devices could ease pressure on ventilators in intensive care units.

“A stream of oxygen is applied to the patient’s airway, using either a tight fitting mask or a hood. This stream is applied with a higher pressure than is normally in the air. The extra pressure helps to open up, and keep open, the collapsed alveoli and push oxygen across the inflamed lung membrane. Therefore, CPAP increases blood oxygen more than just giving oxygen using a conventional oxygen mask.”

The lack of ventilators has become a critical problem in New York City, where mayor Bill De Blasio has asked the federal government for another 400 of the machines.

The head of Columbia University’s Medical Center has warned that ventilators and ICU beds will need to be rationed within weeks.

Last week Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed Australia had a “standing capacity of about 2000 ventilators” but the federal government was seeking to double that amount.

Originally published as Anthony Pratt donates $1m for virus ‘silver-bullet solution’ as doctors look to solve ventilator dilemma