Sun Tzu said in The art of war …
Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. If you are ignorant of your enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are the same. If you are ignorant of your enemy and yourself, you can be sure to be defeated in every battle.
And since we know little about our enemy, the fucking virus, it is better for us to work together to tip the balance in this unequal fight. So, since the vaccine will still take time to arrive, but I am sure we will have it, and at the moment we lack specific drugs to treat the coronavirus, drugs or existing treatments are being used for other types of viral infections.
Today no drug can be marketed without the different studies that support its effectiveness and without the approval of the corresponding body, but on many occasions the studies have only confirmed something that they already knew in ancient times. It is true that they could not explain why or how, but they did know why. As in the case of silver to conserve and sterilize water. The first published work on the use of silver to treat wounds dates back to the 17th century. During the 19th century, treatments with silver salts were developed for their antimicrobial properties and even at the end of the century silver thread began to be used by surgeons to prevent possible postoperative infections. We have another example in this same century in the colonization of the Far West by the white man. The lack of knowledge of the orography and places to get water gave special importance to the transfer of large quantities of it and, above all, to its conservation. And the conservation method was none other than throwing a silver coin into the water. Well, in the V century a. C., as I said at the beginning, they would not be able to explain how or why, but according to what Herodotus tells us, Cyrus II of Persia always carried large silver vessels with him to transport water on his many conquest expeditions. Today we know that silver is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent whose efficacy has been widely proven against the most harmful microorganisms that appear in everyday life, such as E. coli, Legionella, Pseudomonas or Salmonella , among others. In addition, it is tasteless, odourless, non-toxic and is used to treat more than six hundred viral and bacterial diseases (parasites, herpes, candida...). It only has one problem, silver does not work as an antimicrobial surface when it is dry, since it reacts to moisture releasing silver ions that act against bacteria.
And here comes the star product, copper . Ancient Egyptians used copper to sterilize drinking water, cure headaches, and help with skin conditions, and soldiers used the filings from their bronze (bronze and/or tin alloy) swords to prevent infection of wounds. Hippocrates, one of the first references in medicine, recommended copper as a treatment for various diseases. Similarly, in India and the Far East, copper was used to treat skin conditions and lung diseases. They also knew its properties in the ancient Aztec civilization, where they treated sore throats and respiratory infections with a kind of copper infusion. In Rome, doctors recommended the use of copper to cleanse the body of toxins, cure mouth ulcers and even venereal diseases. During the 19th-century cholera epidemic in Paris, doctors were puzzled by the "apparent" immunity of copper workers. The world of wine has also known how to take advantage of this antimicrobial panacea, since copper sulphate is used to prevent the appearance of fungi, one of the great threats that can ruin the harvest. In 1882, Pierre Marie Alexis Millardet, a professor of Botany in Bordeaux, observed in a mildew-affected vineyard that most of the vines had lost their leaves, except for the rows closest to the road, which had been impregnated with a sulfate paste. copper and water. Millardet began to make mixtures with copper sulfate, lime and water, and in 1885 he produced bouillie bordelaise or "Bordeaux broth", one of the first fungicides in history. And one more proof that, with the information we all know at the moment, is that the surface on which the bug survives for the shortest time is on our beloved copper.
Copper began to be frequent since the Industrial Revolution as a raw material for objects, accessories or installations, and although today it sustains our civilization (electricity, water supply, transport and telecommunications depend on this conductive metal), Throughout the 20th century, its use was replaced by other more elegant and, above all, cheaper materials, such as plastic, tempered glass, aluminum or stainless steel. Recent studies tested in healthcare environments have shown that, with the same cleanliness and habits as always, with copper (or alloy) surfaces and materials, there is a reduction of up to 90% of bacteria on surfaces, and this same work taken to intensive care units showed a 58% reduction in infections in patients. So, it can be concluded that copper, which also does not diminish its properties over time, not only can cure various diseases, but also helps prevent them.
As Bill Keevil says , director of the Environmental Health Unit in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton…
It is time to recover copper in public spaces, and in hospitals in particular. With an inevitable future of global pandemics, we should be using copper in healthcare, public transportation, and even in our homes. And while it's too late to stop COVID-19, it's not too late to think about the next pandemic.