-[speaking Spanish]
The most urgent need we have
is that the government should provide all the tests
required to assess the infection in the whole population.
We need thousands and thousands of tests.
We have initiated a clinical trial in order to find out
if the immediate initiation of therapy
after knowing that a person has been infected
might reduce the number of virus present in the droplets.
So this is the viral load, the shedding of the virus,
and these, therefore, will impact in the transmission rate.
-So, we are trying to repurpose
a drug that has already been approved and commercialized,
that is safe and is on the market,
to be used against COVID.
So, last week, we started with the recruitment of patients,
and we expect to have some result
in the coming three to four weeks.
-The people that is actually sick and developed
already the symptoms,
we send a field team to their homes,
fully equipped, fully protected, to just get the sample.
But for the rest of the contacts,
that they are not symptomatic yet,
we ask them if they can come to us in their cars.
They just stop next to us and we collect the samples that way.
The inside of the car is contaminated,
so we ask them just to get the window
just a bit low so the field team can get the sample,
and then they can leave.
-So, our trial, starting in people
that have symptoms for less than five days,
is offering them hydroxychloroquine
plus a second compound,
but also, we are offering hydroxychloroquine
to those that has been in close contact with the aim
for preventing the infection in those that were not infected.
-We hope to define or to design new vaccine
that will be hopefully protective
not only against this SARS-CoV-2 virus
but also against the former SARS
or maybe against the future coronaviruses
that try to jump to the human species.
The idea is to contribute to the arsenal of vaccines
that are being developed in the world.
I mean, in the US, phase 1 is starting.
Humans have been started already.
In China, there is a second vaccine prototype
that is gonna be tested in humans.
So the idea is to have different vaccines
that may work in different settings.
-People is concerned because there is a risk of infection,
and this can be severe.
But this is the dark side.
The bright side, which is always the most important one,
is that we are pretty excited.
We want to fight against this pandemic.
We want to contribute to end the pandemic.
We need to figure out how we could dissipate
other emerging virus in the future.
And this is research and this is money, and it's what we need.
Lessons to take home when this will end is that politicians
that, in a new scenario like this,
they should transfer all the decisions to clinicians
or to researchers, to physicians,
to healthcare people,
but not to politicians. Please.
We need to be realistic, to tell the truth,
to say where we are.
To hide the information or to just make it less serious
will not end up by helping the population
because what will happen,
what we have seen in the south of Europe,
that it has been terrible pandemic
that could have been controlled much better
if politician would have paid attention.
The truth is that it's a serious pandemic.
It's a severe one, and it's very contagious,
and we have to adopt all the measures required
to protect the citizens.