12 1GM Tuesday September 15 2020 | the times
News
Thousands of coronavirus patients in
NHS hospitals will be given a new
cocktail of antibodies as British re-
searchers expand the world’s largest
trial of potential Covid-19 treatments.
The Recovery trial, which includes
176 hospitals across the UK and is being
run from the University of Oxford, was
responsible for finding the first drug
proven to save the lives of Covid-
patients, the steroid dexamethasone.
It will now recruit patients to test an
anti-viral antibody cocktail developed
by Regeneron, an American biotech-
nology company.
The treatment consists of monoclon-
al antibodies, laboratory-grown ver-
sions of the antibodies patients develop
to help fight off the infection naturally,
which attach to virus particles, prevent-
ing them from infecting human cells.
It is the first time that the Recovery
project, which only recruits patients ill
enough to be admitted to hospital, has
tested a new treatment developed spe-
cifically to tackle Covid-19. Until now it
had looked at pre-existing drugs, such
as the anti-malaria medicine hydroxy-
chloroquine, found to be ineffective.
The antibody trial will involve 4,
patients who will be randomly split into
two groups. One will get the standard
care; the other will get standard care
plus the antibodies.
Martin Landray, professor of medi-
cine and epidemiology at Oxford, who
is helping to lead the project, said: “We
have seen the power of randomised
trials to provide rigorous assessment of
potential treatments. Up to now, we
have largely been studying whether
existing drugs can be re-purposed to
tackle this new disease, but we now
have the opportunity to rigorously
assess the impact of a drug specifically
designed to target this coronavirus.
“There are good reasons to be excited
about this new development — Recov-
ery will provide a robust assessment of
the effect of this lab-manufactured
News Coronavirus
N
obody in the world loves
cider quite like the
British, who drink two
fifths of the global
intake (Andrew Ellson
writes). There are dark clouds
hovering over the country’s
orchards, however.
Hundreds of millions of cider
apples will be left to rot as farmers
and drinks makers try to recover
from the impact of coronavirus —
and the impending loss of sales
from the rule of six.
Since lockdown, consumption of
cider has fallen significantly with
Britons drinking more than half a
million fewer litres a week,Apple growers
left with rotting
crops as cider
sales fall flat
Rail worker
‘not spat on’
before death
Graeme Paton Transport Correspondent
An inquiry into the death of a railway
station worker said to have died after
being “spat at” by a passenger has found
that no such incident took place.
An analysis of CCTV footage and
witness statements of the alleged attack
on Belly Mujinga concluded that there
was no spitting incident on the station
concourse. The report, published by
Govia Thameslink Railway, her em-
ployer, also found that Ms Mujinga, 47,
and her colleagues present did not
make any complaint of spitting. An in-
ternal investigation was only launched
almost three weeks later when her
union, the Transport Salaried Staffs’
Association, wrote to the company al-
leging a “deliberate coughing incident”.
A further three weeks later a further al-
legation of spitting was made.
The report admitted the company
failed to properly support Ms Mujinga’s
family after the death. Govia said it was
“heartbroken” by her loss.Newborn Covid twins go home
The parents of premature twins
thought to be the first in the UK
born with Covid-19 have spoken of
their joy after they were declared fit
and healthy and allowed home.
Sarah Curtis, 32, and her husband
Aaron, 33, were horrified when she
tested positive for Covid-19 days
before the birth. Mrs Curtis was
asymptomatic but feared that she
had put the twins at risk.
She went into labour ten weeks
early on July 3 but her husband
could not stay with her due to
Covid-19 restrictions. Doctors
confirmed that Kenna and Lisa were
born with the virus, which was
transferred to them via the placenta.
Mrs Curtis, from Distington,
Cumbria, said: “I was more scared of
having Covid than my water
breaking — I was so nervous. When
I got the confirmation that I hadcoronavirus I was just so angry with
myself.” She had had a difficult
pregnancy because of twin-to-twin
syndrome, a prenatal condition in
which twins share unequal amounts
of the placenta’s blood supply,
resulting in the two foetuses
growing at different rates.
She had to travel 300 miles to
London to get laser surgery to
correct the issue, but was told it was
likely that she would lose one of the
twins. The couple had lost their
daughter Lottie to cot death in 2017.
Mrs Curtis, who has two other
children, said: “It was a miracle that
both twins survived. The last week
in hospital felt like a prison
sentence. But thankfully the staff
were just brilliant. They made us
feel comfortable. It’s been a surreal
year but we’ve come away with two
beautiful, healthy girls.”Teachers at the school where the rugby
player Danny Cipriani and the artist
Simon Elwes were educated are among
those facing cuts in their pensions
because of the scheme’s rising costs and
a financial squeeze on independent
schools caused by the pandemic.
Fifty-three private schools have
stopped staff from enrolling in the
Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) since
the lockdown began in March, The
Times has learnt after a freedom of in-
formation request. Since January 2019,
177 private schools have opted out.
Among them is the £11,700-a-term
boys’ day and boarding Oratory School
in Woodcote, South Oxfordshire,
which pulled out in August. Old Orato-
rians include Cipriani and the war artist
and royal portrait painter Simon Elwes.
The economic hit from the coronavi-
rus has already forced some private
schools to shut entirely, including the
180-year-old Ashdown House prepara-
tory school in East Sussex, whose old
boys include Boris Johnson.
Independent schools are setting up
their own pension schemes because
they have been told to foot a 44 per cent
increase in the amount they had to pay
into the TPS. The changes were an-
nounced in April 2019 and took effect
five months later.
The TPS is one of the most generous
pensions in Britain. It is used by most
independent and state school teachers
and is one of only eight schemes guar-
anteed by the government.
The amount private schools contrib-
uted to their teachers’ pensions went up
from 16.4 per cent to 23.6 per cent in
September last year, which costs them
about £191 million a year. This isSchools squeeze teachers’ pensions
Kate Palmer because the government changed the
rate used to work out how much was
needed to fund the scheme.
The government will help state
schools and further education colleges
meet the cost, but private schools have
not been offered any help. There are
about 2,600 independent schools in the
UK with more than 600,000 children.
Some have passed the cost on to
parents through higher school fees, but
there are concerns that parents will be
unwilling to pay more in a recession.
Under TPS, retirement earnings are
based on a teacher’s average earnings
during their membership, known as a
career-average scheme. Most inde-
pendent schools leaving the TPS will
switch teachers to defined contribution
schemes, which are invested in stocks
and shares, and crucially do not guar-
antee retirement income.
Julie Robinson, chief executive of the
Independent Schools Council, said the
schools remained committed to ensur-
ing their staff had high quality pen-
sions. A Department for Education
spokesman said: “We are in discussions
with independent schools to explore
options that could allow those schools
to keep as many of their teachers as
possible in the scheme.”
Ashdown House, Boris Johnson’s old
school, has been forced to shut downBritish hospital patients
to test antibody cocktail
monoclonal antibody combination
treatment in hospitalised patients.”
The new treatment, called REGN-
COV2, was selected in part because
small human trials suggest that it is safe
and studies in monkeys showed that it
reduced the amount of virus and asso-
ciated damage in the lungs.
The therapy includes two types of
antibodies. They were chosen because
in tests they were found to latch onto
the spike protein of the virus, which it
uses to infect human cells, particularly
well. They should, in theory, stop the
pathogen from infecting new tissue.
Choosing two antibodies is a safe-
guard measure: if the virus mutates in a
way that changes the shape of the spike
protein, some types of antibody could
be rendered ineffective. Other groups
developing similar antibody treat-
ments believe that they could be used to
protect people from becoming infected
in the first place. They may ultimately
be offered to people with weakened im-
mune systems, for whom a convention-
al vaccine would not be suitable.
Peter Horby, professor of emerging
infectious diseases and global health at
Oxford, the chief investigator of the
trial, said: “We have already discovered
that one treatment, dexamethasone,
benefits Covid-19 patients, but the
death rate remains too high so we must
keep searching for others. The Recov-
ery trial was specifically designed so
that when promising investigational
drugs such as REGN-COV2 became
available they could be tested quickly.”
Nick Cammack, Covid-19 therapeu-
tics accelerator lead at Wellcome, said:
“Novel antivirals and monoclonal anti-
bodies are among the most exciting
treatments for Covid-19 because they
are specific to the disease.
“Large-scale randomised controlled
studies like Recovery give us the best
understanding of whether drugs like
REGN-COV2 are safe and effective
against Covid-19, but we must ensure
that any successful treatment is avail-
able to everyone who needs it globally.”Rhys Blakely Science Correspondent
Sarah and Aaron Curtis with daughters Kenna and Lisa, who were born on July 3
AARON CURTIS/SWNS