Coronavirus cure: When will we have a drug to treat it? How far are we from life-saving medicines?

BBC News ^ | 04/21/2020 | James Gallagher

[SeekAndFind]

More than 150,000 people have died with Covid-19, but there are still no drugs proven to help doctors treat the disease.

So how far are we from these life-saving medicines?

What work is being done to find treatments?

More than 150 different drugs are being researched around the world. Most are existing drugs that are being trialled against the virus.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched the Solidarity trial aimed at assessing the most promising treatments
• The UK says its Recovery trial is the the world's biggest, with more than 5,000 patients already taking part
• And multiple research centres around the world are attempting to use survivors' blood as a treatment

What types of drugs might work?

There are three broad approaches being investigated:

• Antiviral drugs that directly affect the coronavirus's ability to thrive inside the body
• Drugs that can calm the immune system - patients become seriously ill when their immune system overreacts and starts causing collateral damage to the body
• Antibodies, either from survivors' blood or made in a lab, that can attack the virus

What is the most promising coronavirus drug?

Dr Bruce Aylward, from the World Health Organization, said remdesivir was the only drug that showed any signs of effectiveness, after he visited China.

The antiviral drug was originally designed to treat Ebola, but other options proved more effective.

It has since been shown to be effective at treating other deadly coronaviruses (Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome) in animal studies, leading to hopes it will also be effective against the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Leaked results from trials led by the University of Chicago also suggested the drug was effective.

[Jane Long]

BBC BS News

[laplata]

You’re right.

[laplata]

This whole thing is disgusting and more people had better wake up.

[ifinnegan]

One, this has gone on already to some degree with MERS and SARS.

What was found? Hydroxychloroquine. RNA polymerase inhibitors (anti-vitals) — just like are being used now.

And another one Chlorpromazine better known as Thorazine. Not sure why it’s not used now.

Approved Compound Library Identifies Four Small-Molecule Inhibitors of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Replication in Cell Culture

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4136071/

Two, why is this starting now? What different drugs do they think they’ll find?

This has been Fauci’s job for 36 years. They knew about SARS and MERS but never followed through in determining the best drug to treat it if an epidemic were to occur.

I stress that was Fauci’s job for which he had 5 billion a year to spend.

[ConjunctionJunction]

"Dr Bruce Aylward, from the World Health Organization, said remdesivir was the only drug that showed any signs of effectiveness, after he visited China."

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He saw it in China, so it must be true!

/sarc

[LegendHasIt]

"When will we have a drug to treat it?

Two months ago. Where you been, BBC? Under a rock?

[Vendome]

When will we have a drug to treat it? How far are we from life-saving medicines?

Never

Next subject...

[Boomer]

Fake news because the 3 drug cocktail many doctors are using has been shown to be quite effective and safe for most the population.

[krogers58]

From https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

I trust Nature more than the BBC, the following quote is informational:

"Nitazoxanide, a commercial antiprotozoal agent with an antiviral potential against a broad range of viruses including human and animal coronaviruses, inhibited the 2019-nCoV at a low-micromolar concentration (EC50 = 2.12 μM; CC50 > 35.53 μM; SI > 16.76). Further in vivo evaluation of this drug against 2019-nCoV infection is recommended. Notably, two compounds remdesivir (EC50 = 0.77 μM; CC50 > 100 μM; SI > 129.87) and chloroquine (EC50 = 1.13 μM; CC50 > 100 μM, SI > 88.50) potently blocked virus infection at low-micromolar concentration and showed high SI (Fig. 1a, b)."