The University of Hong Kong, together with the United States and Denmark and other institutions, found that the anti-leprosy drug clofazimine (clofazimine) is effective in reducing the Newcastle pneumonia virus and reduce the inflammation caused by the virus; if added to another drug for the treatment of Newcastle Ridcicevir together, the effect is more significant. The findings are now only in animals, and now the application for clinical research, the research team expects to use the new drug as a preventive drug before going to high-risk places or after exposure to the virus.
According to the study, which was published yesterday (16) in the international scientific journal Nature, the anti-leprosy drug clofazimine can prevent the new coronary pneumonia virus from entering cells and disrupting virus replication, significantly reducing lung damage and preventing the “cytokine storm” caused by the virus.
Experiments have shown that after the attack test, the virus in the respiratory tract of golden Syrian hamsters treated with clofazimine was about 67% less than that of hamsters treated with placebo only, i.e. it had a preventive effect; when the hamsters were attacked with clofazimine for three consecutive days, the amount of virus in their lungs was also reduced by a similar amount; when the hamsters were treated with a combination of normal doses of clofazimine and 10% of the dose of the anti-lung drug When the hamsters were given a combination of normal doses of clofazimine and 10% doses of the drug “Ridciclovir”, the lung viral load of the hamsters was reduced by more than 99%. The study was led by HKU Chair Professor of Microbiology Yuen Kwok-yung, who pointed out in a radio program that the treatment could be more effective.
The study’s co-first author, clinical assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, said to Ming Pao, the experiment showed that the hamster before or after exposure to the virus, the use of clofazimine have a protective effect, reflecting that this drug can treat martial lung virus, but also expected to become a preventive drug, in the future may be able to go to high-risk places before, or after exposure to the virus use this drug to prevent infection.
The study also showed that clofazimine was effective in inhibiting the replication of other human pathogenic coronaviruses, including SARS (known as atypical pneumonia in China) and Middle East respiratory syndrome.
The team pointed out that because clofazimine can be taken orally and safely, and is cheaper and easier to manufacture than raltegravir, it is believed that it can alleviate the tight supply of raltegravir and may even help control the spread of the virus and reduce the medical burden.
Yuen Kwok Yung this morning on the radio program described the results of this animal study is encouraging, but if you want to use in the new crown patients, still need to pass two to three clinical testing. He also said that the team is now improving the drug, hoping to make the intestine more easily absorbed, in order to reduce the current 40% of patients using cocktail therapy or Ridciclovir diarrhea phenomenon.
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