U.S. experimental antiviral drugs help fight new coronavirus: remarkable results

The epidemic has spread worldwide, and more than 10 people have been infected with the coronavirus in the United States.

According to foreign media The Verge, the first patient with a confirmed new coronavirus in the United States received an injection of the experimental drug Remdesivir at a hospital in Washington State as part of its treatment. The patient started to improve after taking the drug for one day. Four days later, his fever disappeared.

Although a case study is not enough to prove anything, it is unclear whether this drug called Remdesivir does help patients, or whether his improvement is a coincidence. However, this is one of several drugs that doctors think might help patients with the new coronavirus, including a combination of anti-HIV drugs.

The drug has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or any other regulatory agency. However, it has passed safety tests during the 2014 and 2015 Ebola outbreaks. The combination of lopinavir and ritonavir has been effective in a small number of SARS patients since 2002 and 2003 and has blocked the MERS virus in animal studies.

It is worth mentioning that the team of Li Lanjuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a member of the high-level expert group of the National Health and Medical Commission, announced the latest research results of pneumonia in the treatment of new coronavirus infection in Wuhan.

Coronavirus: According to preliminary tests, in vitro cell experiments showed:

( 1) Abidal at a concentration of 10-30 micromolar, compared with the untreated drug control group, can effectively inhibit the coronavirus up to 60 times, and significantly inhibit the pathological effect of the virus on the cells.

(2) At a concentration of 300 micromolar, darunavir can significantly inhibit virus replication. Compared with the untreated group, the inhibition efficiency is 280 times.