Doctors worldwide are researching drugs against Covid-19. Approval of the drug Remdesivir is imminent - and a stomach protector is also promising.
- The corona virus * is still a mystery to medical professionals. However, doctors around the world are reporting success in treating viral infections.
- Among other things, a malaria drug and a combination of two proven drugs are said to have an effect.
- At the university clinic in Erlangen, doctors treat Covid-19 patients with blood plasma from people who have already survived a coronavirus infection.
- A promising drug candidate is now pending approval for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.
- A heartburn preparation is currently being tested as a potential anti-Covid-19 agent in a clinical study.
Update from May 19th: Anti heartburn remedy for coronavirus infection
A stomach protection product is currently being tested for possible effects against Covid-19. It was more by accident that Chinese and American doctors, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, came up with the idea that the stomach drug famotidine could inhibit the proliferation of Sars-CoV-2 *. The doctors had analyzed over 6,000 medical records and came to a surprising conclusion: many coronavirus patients suffered from heartburn and reflux, but those who took the inexpensive famotidine were more likely to survive than those who swallowed expensive drugs such as omeprazole .
A clinical trial is underway in US clinics that is investigating the effects of famotidine in the treatment of Covid-19 . "If it works, we will know in a few weeks," head of research Kevin Tracey is quoted as saying by the South German. "We didn't want to talk about the topic too early so that there were no bottlenecks and no wrong conclusions were drawn."
Update from May 15th: Medicines for the coronavirus available to the general public before summer?
The European Medicines Agency is optimistic: It is possible that drugs against the coronavirus could be approved "before the summer". The best candidate is currently the drug Remdesivir . It is an experimental, not yet approved drug that was developed against Ebola and Marburg virus infections. Clinical tests in coronavirus patients showed that they recovered faster when Remdesivir was given. However, the following still applies: Long-term data from drug tests against coronavirus infections * are missing. The head of the European Medicines Agency, Marco Cavaleri, stressed in a statement on May 14 that more data are needed that cover a longer period. However, initial results make him confident, as the editorial network Germany reported.
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Update of April 8th, 2020: University Hospital Erlangen treats Covid-19 patients with blood plasma
With the help of blood plasma transfusion, coronavirus patients are treated at the University Hospital Erlangen. Doctors use the blood plasma of people who have Covid-19 but are already healthy again. In their blood there are antibodies against the disease, which the doctors use in the treatment. "The antibodies attack the virus and make it easier for the patient to eliminate the virus," quotes Focus Professor Holger Hackstein, head of the department for transfusion medicine at the university clinic in Erlangen. In this way, the patient can recover more quickly and ventilation can be ended earlier. This type of therapy would not fight the symptoms of Covid-19 *, but the cause - the virus.
A mixture of plasma and antibodies is obtained from the donor blood and frozen, says Hackstein. After a further examination, these patients can be administered. " Current scientific data indicate that Covid-19 immune plasma can significantly weaken life-threatening courses," said Hackstein. There are currently 19 Covid-19 patients in the Erlangen University Hospital, including eleven in an intensive care unit. "If our initiative is successful - which will also start shortly in some other university hospitals - this procedure could significantly improve the therapy," says a publication from the University Hospital Erlangen.
The transfusion medicine and hemostaseology department of the University Hospital Erlangen has now become one of the first institutions in Germany to receive regulatory approval to produce therapeutic plasma for the treatment of seriously ill Covid-19 patients . "We are very happy and grateful for the prompt processing of our application documents by the government of Upper Franconia," said Professor Hackstein: "We have been in intensive contact with the government of Upper Franconia for many weeks. This effort has paid off".
Also read : Vaccination against the corona virus: "Vaccine King of India" starts production - although test results are pending .
Update of April 3, 2020: Doctors are focusing on certain medications in the fight against coronavirus
As reported by the Association of Researching Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (vfa), medicinal products against coronavirus infections that are already approved for another disease or at least in development are currently being used. " Converting them can be done faster than a basic new development, " says the vfa website. The following drug groups are currently being tested for their suitability against Covid-19:
- Antiviral drugs : These were originally developed for HIV, Ebola, hepatitis C, flu *, SARS or MERS (two diseases caused by other coronaviruses) and are designed to block the multiplication of viruses or prevent them from entering lung cells. An old malaria drug is also being tested, according to the vfa, whose effectiveness against viruses has only recently been discovered.
- Immunomodulators , for example against rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel diseases: These preparations are intended to slow down the body's defense reactions.
- Medicines for lung patients: They are intended to ensure that the patient's lungs can supply the blood with enough oxygen.
Update of March 23, 2020: Austria successfully tests drug against Covid-19
The Salzburg State Clinic is now reporting first successes in the treatment of Covid-19. " A drug can slow down the so-called inflammatory storm . The corresponding data have not yet been published. However, they will be published soon. They show that this can reduce the severity of the disease by 90 percent," said Richard Greil, director of the university clinic , cited by oe24.at. Another drug gives cause for cautious good news, according to Greil, according to Mercury *.
Learn how flu and Covid-19 differ .
Update from March 17th, 2020: When does the vaccine against the coronavirus come?
Although around 40 vaccine projects are ongoing, it may take some time before an effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus * comes onto the market. The forecasts could not be more different: Some doctors expect an effective vaccine as early as 2021, others suspect that no vaccine agents against Sars-CoV-2 could be found in the future. The British disease expert Jeremy Farrar said in an interview with Spiegel in early February that he believed that a vaccine against the novel coronavirus would be too late to prevent the global spread of the disease . "And if we are unlucky, it will never succeed," said his gloomy forecast.
Treatment of Covid-19: Medical professionals use drugs "off-label"
Research is not only focused on vaccine development, researchers are also feverishly looking for antiviral drugs that can be used against Covid-19. For the most part, they concentrate on already approved preparations with the advantage that they can be administered immediately. Antiviral preparations are considered less effective than agents against bacteria (e.g. antibiotics), but in many cases they can weaken a severe course of the disease. Already at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic at the end of 2019, physicians were using antiviral drugs "off-label", as there are (to this day) no drugs that are specifically effective against the novel pathogen Sars-CoV-2 . "Off-label use" means "improper use": drugs are used against an illness for whose treatment they have no approval from the regulatory authorities.
So far, for example, doctors have used the HIV drug * Kaletra because it has been shown to improve the symptoms of a corona infection *. Some ongoing studies are now to test this scientifically, as reported by the portal Spektrum.
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Sars-CoV-2 and Sars pathogen from 2002/2003: Researchers use similar behavior
Researchers are taking advantage of the similarity between the novel Sars CoV-2 pathogen and the Sars corona virus, which triggered a pandemic in 2003 that claimed almost 800 lives. " Both viruses use very similar strategies to penetrate cells and may also trigger the disease via similar mechanisms, " Spektrum quotes infection biologist Markus Hoffmann from the German Primate Center in Göttingen (DPZ): "The existing knowledge of Sars can therefore help Combat Covid-19 *. " Hoffmann, his team and DZIF scientists from the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin came to the conclusion that both viruses use the same cell receptor to dock onto their target cells. They were also able to identify a cellular enzyme that is essential for the virus to enter lung cells: the protease TMPRSS2. An existing drug that inhibits this protease could therefore be a promising treatment option, as reported by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).
It is Camostat Mesilate , a drug approved in Japan for inflammation of the pancreas. This is currently being examined to determine whether it can also prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. "We tested SARS-CoV-2 from a patient and found that Camostat Mesilate blocks the entry of the virus into lung cells," said Hoffmann as lead author of the study: "Our results suggest that Camostat Mesilate was also used before Covid-19 could protect ". But this must be investigated further in the context of clinical studies.
Article from 03/10/2020 : 1,925,811 coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide. In the meantime, 120,449 deaths have been reported (as of April 14, 2020). These numbers are extremely worrying, especially because doctors only have symptomatic treatment options , but no causal therapy or even vaccination * is available.
However, Thai doctors are now said to have found a way to successfully treat those affected by combination therapy.
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Combination therapy from flu and HIV medication is intended to combat coronavirus infection
Two doctors from the Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok - specialist Dr. Kriangsak Atipornwanich and Professor Subsai Kongsangdao - said during a conference in the Thai capital that a 71-year-old woman experienced significant improvement in symptoms 48 hours after taking two groups of drugs .
The Bangkok Post further reported that it was a drug cocktail made up of the two drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, which are used for HIV infections * and a flu drug . According to the doctors, the condition of the Chinese patient would have improved significantly two days after the medication was given.
In the video: Thailand reports successful treatment of the coronavirus infection
Read also : Coronavirus and flu in comparison: How the two viral diseases differ .
Effective medication: Chinese patient recovers two days after taking it
AIDS drugs have already been tested in China against the novel coronavirus *. "We checked the related information and also found that anti-flu medication at MERS ( Editor's note : MERS stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, a virus from the coronavirus family that was first mentioned in 2012 , which can cause a serious respiratory infection, pneumonia and kidney failure) , we combined the two groups of drugs, "said Atipornwanich. After the medication had been administered, the patient would have recovered quickly, the doctor continued.
The combination therapy is now to be tested further in the laboratory , explained the Thai authorities. 2,613 (as of April 14, 2020) coronavirus infections are known to date in Thailand.
Sources : www.bangkokpost.com ; www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de; www.rki.de; www.experience.arcgis.com; www.spektrum.de; www.spiegel.de; www.dzif.de; www.vfa.de; www.focus.de
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