[Bommer]

Funny because it appears the Chicoms are treating it with HIV drugs

China Using HIV Drugs For Coronavirus Treatment
By GreatGameIndia - February 1, 2020

China is using HIV drugs for Coronavirus treatment. China is using AbbVie Inc’s HIV drugs as an ad-hoc treatment for pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus while the global search for a cure continues

China Using HIV Drugs To Treat Coronavirus
The Beijing branch of China’s National Health Commission said that a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, sold under the brand name Kaletra by AbbVie, is part of its latest treatment plan for patients infected by the virus, which has killed at least 56 people in China and sickened more than 2,000 worldwide.

The NHC said that while there is not yet any effective anti-viral drug, it recommends patients are given two lopinavir and ritonavir tablets twice a day and a dose of alpha-interpheron through nebulization twice daily.

Medical journal Lancet said on Friday that a clinical trial is under way using ritonavir and lopinavir to treat cases of the new coronavirus. Meanwhile, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention will start developing a vaccine, according to the Global Times.

Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital in Beijing who was infected by the virus after visiting Wuhan to inspect to coronavirus patients, told China News Week earlier this week that his doctor recommended he take the HIV drugs to fight the new virus and they worked on him.

[Brellium]

Because they were used to treat SARS, it was assumed they may work for this virus.

[Publius]

My nightmare scenario is for this to be a bioweapon intended to use a flu virus as a vector to transmit AIDS, which normally requires a blood-to-blood connection.

In other words, years after infection by the coronavirus, the victim develops AIDS.

[catnipman]

“Funny because it appears the Chicoms are treating it with HIV drugs”

there’s nothing “funny” about that; you try every available anti-viral on new viruses and hope something might work ... period ...

[blueplum]

honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. The first treatment was Tamiflu (oseltamivir) according to the (first or second?) Lancet paper. This was a doctor, so no doubt he offered to be a guinea pig, throw the kitchen sink at it, and see if HIV-antivirals (ritonavir and lopinavir) would be a more effective, damn the side effects. If he was starting to slide, what did he have to lose?

[Spktyr]

Um, that would be because a lot of HIV drugs are useful against RNA viruses. HIV and the Wuhan flu are both RNA viruses.

[Spktyr]

Or, put another way, you are basically saying that because atropine is used as an antidote to nerve agents, giving atropine to a patient to treat amblyopia (”lazy eye”) or bradycardia (”slow heart”) means that they have also been exposed to a nerve agent.

Medications are often used to treat more than one disease, if you didn’t know.

[Lopeover]

Yes. This is a weaponized virus.

[PghBaldy]

They were treating other corona viral infections with HIV drugs years ago. Nothing odd about this.

(June 2015) https://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Article/2015/06/22/South-Korea-mulls-combining-HIV-drugs-with-antivirals-to-combat-MERS?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright

[Clarence The One Eyed Lion]

Seems like a perfect opportunity for them to stop the Hong Kong protests.

[MD Expat in PA]

From 2003 - Cloaked similarity between HIV-1 and SARS-CoV suggests an anti-SARS strategy

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2180-3-20