Kobe University Newsletter Kaze Vol.10
7/18

-Conducting antibody tests on 10,000 people in Hyogo Prefecture- From a Clinical Virology perspectiveProfessor MORI YasukoCenter for Infectious Diseases, Graduate School of Medicine06In our laboratory, we are conducting research on herpesviruses. We have been striving to illuminate the molecular mechanisms through which these viruses cause illness and to develop ways to supress it. Using our previous work as a basis, we have been researching the SARS-CoV-2 (which is a novel coronavirus) by analyzing clinical samples that we receive from hospitals.First of all, we performed various analyses on blood samples from patients and found that their bodies had produced substances such as neutralizing antibodies and cytokines which cause inammation. Furthermore, we revealed that neutralizing antibody levels were higher in patients with severe symptoms and that cytokine storms occur within such patients. We have also shown that it is vital for patients with severe symptoms to be treated with antiviral drugs in the early stage and anti-inammatory drugs during the critical stage. In addition, our research team conducted antibody tests on over 500 medical personnel working at hospitals treating patients with COVID-19, and found Illuminating the mechanism behind severe COVID-19 and developing control methodsthat all of them tested negative for antibodies (i.e., they had not been infected). This result conrms that hospitals’ infection prevention standards are eective. In other words, we showed that when doctors, nurses and other medical sta thoroughly follow prevention measures, they can avoid catching the virus from patients. I believe that this will improve condence in the safety of medical establishments. We extended the scope of the study to cover all regions of Hyogo prefecture and carried out antibody tests on 10,000 outpatients at ve hospitals and medical examination facilities to investigate the rate of infection. Only 0.15% of patients were positive for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies in the tests conducted between August and October of 2020. It is believed that this percentage of positive test results indicates cases that were mostly asymptomatic. At the same time, the results highlight the need to be aware that there are many people who have yet to be infected. We conducted this research with Hyogo Prefecture and thanks to them we were able to obtain the cooperation of the doctors and testing departments in each hospital. There has been a wonderful sense of solidarity among all the people involved in this research including the sta of Kobe University Hospital’s clinical laboratory and division of clinical virology, and the students.Currently, we are focusing on research into illuminating the mechanism behind the development of severe COVID-19 symptoms. We would like to nd the answers as to why the majority of young people are asymptomatic or exhibit only mild symptoms, whereas many elderly people exhibit severe life-threatening symptoms. It is vital to illuminate these aspects in order to promote thorough understanding of this unknown virus.We are also conducting research into developing antibody drugs and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. Given that it is a new virus, we are making discoveries just through studying it. This research is benecial as the results will contribute towards the development of treatments.

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