COVID-19 Antivirals Struggling To Launch

Antiviral medications to treat the novel coronavirus disease in China are needed
photo of ID with antiviral pills
(Precision Vaccinations News)

According to media reports, the efforts to test and then offer antiviral mediations to treat the novel coronavirus disease in China are facing challenges.

As an example, on February 5, 2020, it was reported in the WSJ that clinical trials of Gilead Sciences’ Remdesivir medication had launched in Wuhan, China.

But, a recent WSJ article reported that Gilead and Chinese health authorities are having difficulties recruiting eligible patients. 

This important study’s participant recruitment goal is to test more than 700 patients infected with the coronavirus, but at this point, there have been about 168 people recruited.

Separately, China’s state-owned pharmaceutical companies China Resources Pharmaceutical Group and China Medicine Health Industry Co. are reported to be expanding the production of Chloroquine. 

This medication appears to be effective in treating the novel coronavirus with no severe side effects. 

Chloroquine has been in clinical use for more than 70 years.

Additionally, there is some more good news.

China's National Medical Products Administration has approved the marketing of Favilavir, formerly known as Fapilavir, an antiviral medication that has shown efficacy in treating the novel coronavirus COVID-19. 

Favilavir was developed by Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical, which is the 1st drug that has been approved for marketing in China. 

Fapilavir is reported to have demonstrated efficacy with minor side effects in an ongoing 70-patient clinical trial in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

As of February 18, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration has not approved any medication to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections and medications to treat COVID-19 patients.

Viruses, such as the SARS-CoV-2, use human cellular machinery to create proteins that help it replicate, so targeting the viruses while not damaging human cells can prove challenging, says a recent study.

The typical generic coronavirus genome is a single strand of RNA, 32 kilobases long, and is the largest known RNA virus genome. 

Coronaviruses have the highest known frequency of recombination of any positive-strand RNA virus, promiscuously combining genetic information from different sources when a host is infected with multiple coronaviruses. 

In other words, these viruses mutate and change at a high rate, which can create havoc for both diagnostic detections as well as therapy regimens.

Coronavirus medication and vaccine news published by Precision Vaccinations.

 

 

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