New research by scientists in India shows that horses immunized with inactivated SARS-CoV-2 can quickly produce enough antibodies to potentially neutralize the COVID-19 virus and its variants.
According to the preliminary paper, the team used inactivated Indian SARS-CoV-2 cultures mixed with Freund’s Complete Adjuvant — a solution that promotes cell-mediated immunity— to inoculate the horses. They subsequently tested plasma samples to measure antibody response and found the highest immunoglobulin titer occurred just 42 days postimmunization, at 1:51,200 dilutions.
Other results indicate this strategy could potentially treat severe COVID-19 cases with high titers, as well as defuse COVID variants, since it demonstrated cross neutralization of another SARS-CoV-2 strain.
With COVID-19 still wreaking havoc worldwide, this type of passive immunotherapy, using large animals, is just another tool being considered to combat the virus.
