Antiviral Drug Remdesivir By Gilead:Most Effective For Treating 2019-nCoV Coronavirus According To Study Trials Published Last Week In NEJM Journal
Source: Thailand Medical News Feb 02, 2020 4 years, 10 months, 1 day, 4 hours, 50 minutes ago
Already at the start of the
coronavirus outbreak in late December 2019, Chinese medical researchers and doctors were already treating
coronavirus infected patients with a
HIV antiviral called
Aluvia, also known as
Kaletra, which is is a combination of
lopinavir and
ritonavir and is produced by pharmaceutical company AbbVie. (simply goggle online and you can see that many medical sites were already talking about the usage of this drug for coronavirus since early January 2020.)
The
antivirals were the first choice as there was already more than 37 previous published clinical studies that showed it was effective for the SARS c
oronavirus and since the 2019-nCoV
coronavirus was similar to the SARS
coronavirus (initial gene sequencing had shown a 84 to 87 percent match), it was the first choice.
The Chinese doctors also experimented with other combo protocols using the
HIV antivirals along with
influenza antivirals such as oseltamivir phosphate (available as a generic version or under the trade name Tamiflu®), zanamivir (trade name Relenza®), peramivir (trade name Rapivab®) and.baloxavir marboxil (trade name Xofluza®).
However the Chinese doctors found that the drug combinations were not effective especially in patients in serious stages as it aggravated their kidney functions and lead to kidney failure and even accelerated the organ failure conditions they were already experiencing in the latent stages of the disease.
Later an adopted protocol was to take two standard doses of
lopinavir and
ritonavir along with a dose of nebulized
alpha-interferon twice a day. Using this protocol, more than 230 patients were cured according to Guizhou Medical University in China.
However,
Gilead Pharma had another more effective
antiviral drug candidate called
remdesivir which is actually a nucleotide analog prodrug. The company shipped stocks to the Chinese as early as mid-January 2020 for testing.
Gilead also started laboratory testing of
remdesivir against 2019-nCoV. In those studies,
Gilead stated that remdesivir was also "shown to be active" against SARS and MERS in animals.
The drug was administered to the first US patient confirmed with the 2019-nCoV
coronavirus since the 22nd of January for "compassionate use" after he progressed to pneumonia.(this was done with USFDA and CDC support and approvals)
The patient has since recovered and the findings of that drug trial have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine since the 31
st of January 2020.
Meanwhile since the late January 2020, Chinese medical researchers stated to the media that in exploratory research considering a selection of 30
drug candidates, three of them, remdesivir, chloroquine and
lopinavir/
ritonavir, seemed to have "fairly good inhibitory. effects" on 2019-nCoV at the cellular level. Requests to start clinical testing were submitted along with that for
remdesivir.
The American trial and also subsequent Chinese trials all indicate that it is the current drug choice for treatment.
Gilead is planning further trial and also to get the drug repurposed for 2019n-CoV treatment with the US FDA.
The public is to be aware and there are some South-east Asian entities claiming to have invented the cure for the 2019-nCoV or have invented these drugs and these protocols and some of this claims have been published in unreliable media with journalist that are totally ignorant of medical matters. The same also goes about allegations of certain doctors in South-east Asia who had discovered the MERs virus first, this is not true and the same goes about them discovering the new coronavirus before the Chinese or others, even in terms of genomic mapping.) (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome-related_coronavirus)
For more reliable updates about the China coronavirus epidemic or the Thailand Coronavirus scenario, keep on checking at: https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/coronavirus
References:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191?query=featured_home
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-abbvie-hiv/china-testing-hiv-drug-as-treatment-for-new-coronavirus-abbvie-says-idUSKBN1ZP0QK
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/01/31/china-coronavirus-us-antiviral-meds-used-treat-first-patient/4622612002/
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/ncov-expands-europe-antiviral-drug-study-launch-china
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/can-anti-hiv-combination-or-other-existing-drugs-outwit-new-coronavirus
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-drugmakers-ship-therapies-to-china-seeking-to-treat-coronavirus-11580166592
https://www.biospace.com/article/abbvie-to-donate-hiv-drug-to-china-as-potential-treatment-for-coronavirus/
