How a ‘remedy’ for mercury toxicity can save billions of lives

By Mark J. Wilson / Associated Press A mercury-based treatment can help reduce the health risks from the coronavirus by 20 percent, researchers say.

The breakthrough in a decades-long battle with mercury is based on a technique called sublimation, which involves melting a substance and letting it condense into tiny particles.

The process has already saved thousands of lives worldwide by reducing the symptoms of coronaviruses such as the coronaveptavirus, a coronaviral disease that kills more than 1.6 million people a year, and the coronocarcinavirus type-2, which has spread to more than 200 countries.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania and their colleagues reported in a medical journal Wednesday that they used the technique to produce a small amount of a new form of mercury, called an ethyl mercaptan.

The new form is more effective than mercury-containing pharmaceutical drugs and can be administered in an outpatient setting.

The research is one of several recent breakthroughs in the fight against the coronavia, a disease that can cause death and illness.