The death toll for COVID-19 is on the rise, and so is the total number of cases. In the context of this global pandemic, feeling overwhelmed by all the negative information is a natural response. But researchers are also hard at work trying to understand, treat, and prevent the new coronavirus.
There are no specific therapeutics approved by the regulatory authorities to treat people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the newly emergent SARS-CoV-2 virus (formerly known as 2019-nCoV).
The FDA has been working closely with other government agencies and academic centers that are investigating the use of the drug chloroquine, which is already approved for treating malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, to determine whether it can be used to treat patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to potentially reduce the duration of symptoms, as well as viral shedding, which can help prevent the spread of disease. Studies are underway to determine the efficacy in using chloroquine to treat COVID-19.
What does experts say?
Chloroquine, a drug that has been used to prevent and treat malaria, has shown promise in being a potential treatment for the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe; Reaction and analysis from toxicologist, Dr. Chris Martenson.
Dr. Chris Martenson said the experimental drugs — including hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
Although chloroquine has a “spotty past” and is unsafe at certain levels, Martenson noted that at the levels used in studies, the drug seems to “be reasonably safe” and works by allowing zinc to stop viruses from replicating.
In addition, azithromycin could potentially stop secondary infections in damaged lungs, he said.
Martenson, however, warned there are plenty of unknowns.
“Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot yet about how this is really going to behave in the patient population because the studies in question just involved a couple of dozen people. While a small number of patients saw viral loads going down, long-term effects have yet to be revealed”. he said.
“We are going to want to test this against all sorts of different patient populations, different co-morbidities. We are going to want to track the safety of profiles very, very carefully,” he said. “So, in essence, we are going to be running basically live clinical trials on this at this point in time. And there, we are looking for both efficacy and safety, and we need to be really tracking very carefully what the outcomes are.”
Vaccine:
Where as a vaccine is being trialed, more underway. A trial is currently taking place to test a potential SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for the first time in humans.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have funded the trial and 45 healthy volunteers will receive a vaccine that contains a segment of genetic code copied from SARS-CoV-2. As the vaccine does not contain the actual SARS-CoV-2, the participants will not develop COVID-19.
Government officials caution that it may take 12–18 months before the vaccine reaches the market and explain that the main purpose of this current trial is to make sure that there are no serious side effects.
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