Int J Infect Dis: Good news! Existing drugs may be effective in treating new coronavirus!

March 1, 2020 / / -- The number of people infected with the new coronavirus continues to soar, with more than 80,000 people infected worldwide by the end of February.
but there is no vaccine or cure, which means doctors have no choice but to provide supportive treatment to seriously ill patients and hope their bodies will survive the infection.
, however, a European research union says approved drugs may be key to treating the new virus.
their findings have been published as pre-empted evidence in the International Journal of Diseases.
Drug reuse is a strategy to generate additional value from existing drugs that targets diseases that are different from what was originally expected," said Denis Kainov, senior author of the paper and an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
such as teicoplanin, oritavancin, dalbavancin and monensin are approved antibiotics that have been shown in the laboratory to inhibit coronaviruses and other viruses.
" Photo Source: And his co-creators say these and other safe, broad-spectrum antiviral drugs are good candidates for treating the disease, as there is currently no cure for the new coronavirus, known as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The World Health Organization says the virus can cause mild symptoms, including runny nose, sore throat, cough and fever.
may be more severe for some people and may lead to pneumonia or breathing difficulties.
even rarer, the disease can be fatal.
older people, as well as people with a history of diabetes and heart disease, seem to be more susceptible to the virus.
"the benefits of drug reuse are that all the details of drug development -- from chemical synthesis steps and manufacturing processes to clinical trials -- are known. "As a result, repositioning drugs that have been rolled out or failed for viral diseases offers unique conversion opportunities, including a much higher likelihood of successful market launch than the development of new virus-specific drugs and vaccines, and significantly lower costs and clinical availability time," the
researchers wrote.
reviewed information about the discovery and development of broad-spectrum antiviral drugs (BSAAs), drugs targeting viruses from two or more different virus families.
they have identified 120 drugs that have proven to be safe for humans and have built a database that is free to access.
found that 31 of them may be candidates for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infections.
researchers also found that clinical studies of five potential candidates for coVID-19 virus have recently begun, concluding: "In the future, BSAAs will have a global impact by reducing morbidity and mortality from viruses and other diseases, maximizing healthy life expectancy, improving the quality of life of infected patients, and reducing patient care costs."
() References: Petter I. Andersen et al, Discovery and development of safe-in-man broad-spectrum antiviral agents, International Journal of Analytic Diseases (2020).DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.02.018.