CEO Dr Jerry Kanellos said in the U.S., the Centres of Disease...

CEO Dr Jerry Kanellos said in the U.S., the Centres of Disease Control and Prevention recently updated the symptoms of the coronavirus to include diarrhea.

"This growing clinical evidence suggests that the Gastrointestinal tract may present another viral target organ," he said.

"The virus RNA has been detected in anal swabs of patients even after nasopharyngeal testing has turned negative, and cells in the inner-gut lining
express high amounts of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to gain entry to cells implying the potential for gastrointestinal infection and a fecal–oral transmission route," he explained.

If the fecal-to-oral transmission is an important factor in the pandemic, then an oral therapeutic treatment would have a significant impact. However, at this stage, the research is still inconclusive.

Immuron's new discovery can potentially offer a new oral therapeutic approach to target and directly inhibit the virus in the gastrointestinal tract.