Hadassah COVID-19 Update

A brief overview at Hadassah Hospitals, Jerusalem:

• What is the current capacity and occupancy of COVID-19 patients at Hadassah?

As of today there are 138 beds in the Outbreak Wards, with an 80-85% occupancy of COVID-19 patients (representing the fluctuation between this morning and this afternoon) at Hadassah Ein Kerem. There are a total of seven COVID-19 wards, two of which are COVID-19 ICUs.

• Where are the COVID-19 patients treated?

Six of the departments are on Levels 4-8 in the Round Building (separate to the rest of the hospital). There is another department in building 5 (adjacent to the Round Building).

• What is the current status of the COVID-19 research projects at Hadassah?

Hadassah researchers continue to impress and share with the world our discoveries of novel solutions both to Covid-19 and other diseases. Most notably, Five people participating in the first clinical trial to treat COVID-19 patients with human cells taken from healthy live donors recovered after receiving the drug Allocetra. The drug is based on the research of Prof. Dror Mevorach, head of Hadassah’s Internal Medicine B Department and one of Hadassah’s COVID-19 outbreak units in collaboration with an Israeli Biotech firm.

Hadassah is also to begin this month a clinical trial with an Israeli-made COVID-19 vaccine. One hundred volunteers are being recruited to participate at Hadassah and Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Centre. The vaccine was engineered by replicating a virus that is not harmful to humans and replacing one of its proteins with the coronavirus spike protein. This protein will trigger the production of antibodies to it, preventing the virus from binding to human cells.

Hadassah is also collaborating with BioPharma firm Kamada to test a “passive vaccine” that is showing promising therapeutic results in patients with COVID-19. The passive vaccine uses antibodies from recovered patients to treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Potentially, it could also stop the progression of disease in high-risk patients who contract the virus.

• What are Hadassah’s plans moving forward to increase capacity to treat COVID-19 patients?

In light of the ongoing increase in severe patients across the country, and in the greater Jerusalem area specifically, there are currently plans being worked on to open an additional 36-bed Outbreak ward on Level Two in the Round Building.

Management is planning steps after that, should they be necessary to convert additional hospital areas to ICU wards – as today the Israeli Government has ordered Israeli hospitals to add a total of 1,500 new COVID beds by October 15 2020.

Editors Note:

The above content was accurate as of 01-10-2020, and the work at Hadassah to keep COVID-19 at bay is ever evolving.

For more information on how Hadassah is supporting Jerusalem and abroad, keep up to date with our social channels.