A team of researchers has identified three repurposed drugs that may be effective in treating COVID-19.
In a new study, scientists have found three previously-available drugs that may be effective at treating COVID-19 in its early stages.
COVID-19 treatments
SARS-CoV-2 and its associated disease, COVID-19, have had a profoundly negative effect on global economies, culture, people’s everyday lives, and above all, on people’s health.
To date, there have been more than 1,150,000 recorded deaths from the disease. There is also mounting anecdotal evidence of the long-term negative health effects it can have on people who recover from the initial illness.
Due to COVID-19’s lethality, and the fact that the disease is highly contagious, scientists are rushing to develop a vaccine. However, producing vaccines that are also safe and effective takes a considerable amount of time.
According to a report in The Lancet, on average, vaccines take 10 years to develop. Even with experts greatly accelerating research due to the urgency of the global pandemic, the report notes that an initial vaccine may take more than 18 months to be developed, manufactured, and distributed to people around the world.
Consequently, scientists have been researching vaccines and potential treatments that may ultimately reduce the chance of a person dying if they develop the disease.
This typically involves repurposing previously available drugs that may also be effective in treating COVID-19. This is important as, much like developing a working vaccine, finding new drugs that can treat COVID-19 may take a long time.
To date, the only repurposed drug that has shown signs of being effective is remdesivir, originally developed to treat Ebola in 2014.
However, a recent major World Health Organization (WHO) study has found that remdesivir has no significant effect on COVID-19 mortality.
As a consequence, identifying effective drugs that experts can repurpose to treat COVID-19 is particularly pressing.
Three drugs identified
After using LBVS to study approximately 4,000 drugs, then verifying their findings, the scientists identified three that may be effective against COVID-19 and, in their opinion, should be made the subject of clinical trials.
The scientists believe that these may be particularly effective if combined with remdesivir or the antiviral drug favipiravir.
As Prof. Tudor Oprea, senior study author and professor of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences and chief of the University of New Mexico Division of Translational Informatics, says:
“Think of it as a whack-a-mole game. Instead of having one hammer, you have two hammers, which is more effective. We’re trying to give the scientific community two hammers instead of one.”
