Treatment with antivirals has been shown to speed up the recovery of Covid-19 patients, according to a Canadian study published today.
Researchers from the University of Toronto conducted an exploratory study on confirmed Covid-19 patients in Wuhan, China, and found that treatment with interferon (IFN)-a2b significantly reduced the duration of detectable virus in the upper respiratory tract and reduced blood levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and C-reactive protein (CRP).
They say that their findings show potential for the development of an effective antiviral intervention for Covid-19.
Lead author Dr Eleanor Fish of the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and University of Toronto’s Department of Immunology, said: “Interferons are our first line of defence against any and all viruses – but viruses such as coronaviruses have co-evolved to very specifically block an interferon response.
“This informs us of the importance of interferons for the clearance of virus infections. Treatment with interferon will override the inhibitory effects of the virus.”
Dr Fish and colleagues examined the course of disease in 77 individuals with confirmed moderate Covid-19, who were admitted Union Hospital, Tongii Medical College, Wuhan, between 16 January and 20 February 2020.
They found IFN-a2b treatment accelerated viral clearance by about seven 7 days, and established that treatment with IFN-a2b, whether alone or in combination with ARB, accelerated viral clearance when compared to ARB treatment alone.
IFN treatment was also found to reduce significantly circulating levels of IL-6 and CRP, whether alone or in combination with ARB.
Despite the limitations of the study, which is published in Frontiers, it hints at functional connections between viral infection and host end organ damage by limiting the subsequent inflammatory response in the lungs of patients, said Dr Fish.
“Rather than developing a virus-specific antiviral for each new virus outbreak, I would argue that we should consider interferons as the ‘first responders’ in terms of treatment. Interferons have been approved for clinical use for many years, so the strategy would be to ‘repurpose’ them for severe acute virus infections,” she added.
* Researchers in Frankfurt, Germany, have also found potential targets for Covid-19 therapy after observing how human cells change when infected with SARS-CoV-2.
They tested a series of compounds in laboratory models and found some that slowed down or stopped virus reproduction, which enables them to search for an active substance in a small number of already approved drugs.
Professor Sandra Ciesek, director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the University Hospital Frankfurt, and her team have used a SARS-CoV-2 infection cell culture system to cultivate the virus in colon cells from swabs taken from two infected individuals returning from Wuhan.
Using the mePROD form of mass spectrometry, they found that SARS-CoV-2 only slightly influences the protein production of the host cell and the infection leads to an increased protein synthesis machinery in the cell.
* The BMJ today publishes a study of hydroxychloroquine treatment, suggesting there is no evidence supporting continued use on Covid-19 patients.
Researchers conducted randomised control trials in France and China. In France, 278 pneumonia patients were involved. The researchers concluded that adverse events significantly increase while there was no evidence of the drug increasing clearance of the virus.
Bojkova D, Klann K, Koch B et al. SARS-CoV-2 infected host cell proteomics reveal potential therapy targets. Nature 14 May 2020; doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2332-7.
Zhou Q, Chen V, Shannon C et al. Interferon-alpha2b treatment for COVID-19. Frontiers 14 May 2020; doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01061
BMJ 15 May 2020; https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1844
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