Experimental drug holds promise for treating the coronavirus

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 12:16pm

Good Morning fellow C99'ers. Just a quick post. I ran across this story on my Twitter feed this morning. After a grueling week where nothing feels normal anymore, I needed a bit of encouraging news. Then I thought you all might too. So here goes:

At least two hospitalized patients who got the drug remdesivir started to feel better the next day. Clinical trial results expected in late April.

There are early signs that an experimental treatment for people who become very sick from the coronavirus may start working within 24 hours of the first dose.

The treatment, an antiviral therapy called remdesivir, is thought to work by blocking the virus from reproducing itself in the body.

"It basically stops the production of the virus," Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious diseases expert and director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, Minnesota, told NBC News.

Preliminarily, it seems at least two hospitalized patients who received remdesivir started to feel better the next day.

Chris Kane, 55, was diagnosed with the coronavirus and hospitalized at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, this month.

"He was really sick," his wife, Susan Kane, told NBC News. "They put him on oxygen right away."

His doctors decided to try remdesivir after it had shown promise in at least one earlier patient.

Tags:

Treatment COVID-19

fingers crossed

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Comments

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 12:34pm

Thanks Anja,

There is a lot of rubbish about COVID-19 on the internet, but this looks legitimate (although it is early days and the sample size is very, very small. Remdesivir has actually been used against Ebola so it has been through clinical trials. It is welcome in that it should be helpful for people that have strong symptoms and it should be possible to ramp its production up rapidly.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:05pm

I've been reading up on how the COVID-19

@Roy Blakeley

Works in the body, and the idea that this drug helps block it's replicating is key. Fingers crossed. I also read that front line healthcare groups formally requested 100 billion dollars from the government for medical supplies to treat patients and protect medical workers. Frankly, I don't see why we aren't producing them in factories like we did war armaments in WWII.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by leveymg on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:26pm

We don't have factories like we did before and during WWII.

@Anja Geitz 90 percent of all pharmaceuticals used in the U.S. are produced in China.

Maybe, that's something we also need to reexamine.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 2:05pm

Well, I was mainly taking about medical supplies

@leveymg

But your point is well taken about pharmaceuticals. Krystal Ball made a good point about what Bernie could exact for dropping out. Namely being put in charge of dealing with the Coronavirius. Pelosi and Schumer are useless, and at least with Bernie, the Dems could outflank what Trump is already doing.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by edg on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 5:13pm

Which supplies?

@Anja Geitz

This is a partial list of medical supplies now made in China instead of the US: protective masks, drapes and gowns, hand wipes, medical exam gloves, medicine cups, stethoscopes and shoe covers.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 8:50pm

I'm confused

@edg

My point was that making them here would make more sense.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by edg on Fri, 03/20/2020 - 12:02pm

My bad. Sorry.

@Anja Geitz

I misunderstood what you meant in this part of your comment: "Frankly, I don't see why we aren't producing them in factories like we did war armaments in WWII". The answer is obvious, so I misinterpreted your intent.

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 10:09pm

The Democrats will not give Bernie anything

@Anja Geitz What did they give him for supporting Hillary Clinton's sorry ass in 2016? Senate director of outreach--a newly created position with absolutely no power. Bernie will support Biden in any case. The Democrats don't need to give him anything.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Fri, 03/20/2020 - 12:43am

Maybe that's true

@Roy Blakeley

But in 2016 they either thought they could win without us, or they thought we'd come out and vote because Trump!

2020, they might be looking at Bernie's strength of supporters a little differently. And maybe Bernie is willing to negotiate on our behalf?

—

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 12:51pm

I just read promising news of another drug:

Old malaria drug hydroxychloroquine may help cure coronavirus

A drug developed over half a century ago to treat malaria is showing signs that it may also help cure COVID-19 — especially when combined with an antibiotic, a promising new study reveals.

Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil — and also used to treat arthritis and other ailments — was determined to be effective in killing the deadly bug in laboratory experiments, Forbes reported, citing findings published March 9 in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

Now, French physician-researchers have completed a largely successful clinical trial using the drug — approved for use in the US in 1955 — to treat confirmed COVID-19 patients, according to a study published Wednesday.

Really worth the read.

The article also notes that:

A test of Chinese patients with a severe case of the novel coronavirus found that the 99 who received AbbVie Inc.’s Kaletra, a cocktail of lopinavir and ritonavir, did not do any better than the 100 who received standard care.

Remdesivir does sound promising, doesn't it. And it is a new treatment option in some parts of Europe.

Submitted by WaterLily on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:45pm

Why would an antibiotic work against a virus?

@Pluto's Republic Good grief.

And I wouldn't put too much stock in hydroxychloroquine. I've taken it in the past for an autoimmune condition that it failed to mitigate (though it was "promising!").

There are significant retinal risks to it as well.

Submitted by edg on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 5:18pm

Not the virus. It's for secondary bacterial pneumonia. n/t

@WaterLily

Submitted by artisan on Fri, 03/20/2020 - 12:06pm

Chloroquine

@Pluto's Republic

A nurse describes her symptoms and recovery from COVID-19. Despite the Lancet warning, she was treated with steroids and ibuprofen. For her recovery she was given Plaquenil and Azithromycin (chloroquine and antibiotic).

Submitted by leveymg on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:34pm

Remdesivir is an approved antiviral in Czech Rep. for Covid19

It originally underwent clinical trials five years ago for use against Ebola. Has also passed clinical and safety trails for SARS last year. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir The problem is, there's no existing supply and no effort was made to ramp up production months ago in the U.S.

In addition, there has until now been no way to test for Coronavirus in the U.S. for the same reason.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:10pm

In the article I linked to

@leveymg

It said that they are already ramping up production. I suspect that since this disease has spread to the elite in our country, all efforts will be made to move quickly.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 9:35pm

It would be easy to ramp up

@Anja Geitz The question is why Gilead did not push this earlier and more vigorously. I am not saying that it is necessarily going to work, but it was developed to inhibit replication of single-stranded RNA viruses, had activity against Ebola, and has been tested for safety. Why not test it widely in people that are very sick?

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:06pm

This, too, was announced in the past week:

Israeli scientists: 'In a few weeks, we will have coronavirus vaccine'

Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis. If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days, according to a release.

“Congratulations to MIGAL [The Galilee Research Institute] on this exciting breakthrough,” Akunis said. “I am confident there will be further rapid progress, enabling us to provide a needed response to the grave global COVID-19 threat,” Akunis said, referring to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

“Given the urgent global need for a human coronavirus vaccine, we are doing everything we can to accelerate development,” MIGAL CEO David Zigdon said. The vaccine could “achieve safety approval in 90 days,” he said.

It will be an oral vaccine, making it particularly accessible to the general public, Zigdon said.

“We are currently in intensive discussions with potential partners that can help accelerate the in-human trials phase and expedite completion of final-product development and regulatory activities,” he said.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:19pm

Interesting read

@Pluto's Republic

“Let’s call it pure luck,” he said. “We decided to choose coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology.”

But after scientists sequenced the DNA of the novel coronavirus causing the current worldwide outbreak, the MIGAL researchers examined it and found that the poultry coronavirus has high genetic similarity to the human one, and that it uses the same infection mechanism, which increases the likelihood of achieving an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time, Katz said.

“All we need to do is adjust the system to the new sequence,” he said. “We are in the middle of this process, and hopefully in a few weeks we will have the vaccine in our hands. Yes, in a few weeks, if it all works, we would have a vaccine to prevent coronavirus.

”

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:11pm

Doesn't Cuba already have something?

I thought I'd read somewhere...

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:22pm

I haven't seen that bit of news

@Raggedy Ann

If that's true, hopefully from one of these medicines, we can stop people from dying. The news coming out of Italy, a place were I lived for a summer and met many wonderful people, is heartbreaking. They just can't get a hold on the spread and the body count, as well as the actual bodies, are piling up.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Granma on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 1:42pm

Cuba developed an antiviral

@Raggedy Ann drug years ago that seems to be helping fight Covid. Possibly interferon is name of it, not sure.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 9:09pm

Yes Cuba has used interferon

@Raggedy Ann

If I have the correct name of the drug. I just saw this on Twitter. The thread is very informative too.

UPDATE:

Full peer reviewed study has been released by Didier Raoult MD, PhD https://t.co/DzFTv13wYn.

After 6 days 100% of patients treated with HCQ + Azithromycin were virologically cured

p-value <.0001https://t.co/vttAIWbPwJ

— Gregory Rigano (@RiganoESQ) March 18, 2020

—

There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 10:14pm

Musk is an ass

@snoopydawg Z-paks are almost a placebo these days because they have been grossly over prescribed and many bacterial pathogens are resistant to them.

Submitted by sarianna on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 2:21pm

Cuba's drug

I just read about Interferon alpha 2b, on earthclinic.com which is a medicine from Cuba. It is an injection, and can be used for animals as well. Apparently, many Mexicans have used it to cure themselves of the virus. There are other interesting alternatives as well. I have used dmso to kill off viruses/bacteria infections that I've had in the past. Works wonders. Gets rid of pain as well.

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Thu, 03/19/2020 - 9:54pm

Interferon

@sarianna There are actually a number of interferons they are produced naturally by the body. Recombinant Interferon alpha 2b is available around the world under various names. Interferon alpha 2b might work if given early. It is a known antiviral. Might be a good idea to give it to old people who are just beginning to show symptoms. It would seem to be something that would have been tried against COVID-19 weeks or months ago. I am surprised that more antivirals have not been tried to lessen the disease in elderly and other at risk patients. Maybe they have been tried, but if so there haven't been a lot of reports.