The Covid-19 pandemic has gotten a lot worse since my last blog post, the number of confirmed cases in the US has skyrocketed to over 300,000. Despite having a much later outbreak than countries such as Italy, Spain and China, the US now has the most confirmed cases in the world. Worldwide death toll has reached 70,000 and the world is scrambling to find a solution to this new and dangerous virus. Researchers are in the early stages of developing vaccines and testing antiviral drugs to fight the virus. I think it is great that scientists are so committed to finding vaccines and treatment that are effective against the coronavirus. However, I know this process will take a long time and the world will have to hold out until this process is done.
The Toyama Chemical Company has announced that they are now entering phase 3 trials to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the influenza antiviral drug Avigan for coronavirus patients. This drug inhibits the RNA polymerase of the influenza virus; however, coronavirus also uses RNA polymerase to replicate, so they believe it can be effective against the coronavirus as well. The company wants to supply their drug to the Japanese government as well as other countries to stop the spread of coronavirus. I think this is rather interesting, you have a company researching the effectiveness of its own product against coronavirus. This is a tricky situation because there is obviously going to be some biased in the research since the company is trying to prove their drug’s effectiveness in order to cell it all over the world. If the antiviral drug actually works that is great, however you do not want this company to rush through their research and make a mistake that could hurt more people and waste valuable time and resources.
UVA recently joined a national clinical trial to treat patients with remdesivir, an antiviral drug used to treat patients with Ebola. This particular antiviral drug showed promise in animal testing against SARS and MERS, two different types of coronavirus. UVA will randomly assign coronavirus patients to either receive remdesivir or a placebo, then they will monitor their conditions. I think the fact that this antiviral drug has been tested on other types of coronaviruses is very promising. However, since the testing was only done on animals a lot more research and testing will be needed to make a definitive statement about its effectiveness. The whole world knows that finding an effective treatment is very important in the fight against Covid-19. It is great to see scientists all over the world working diligently to find an effective treatment, this pandemic is the top priority at the moment in the world of medicine.
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