A drug effective against flu?

Updated Friday, October 25, 2019 - 16:09
Published Fri, 10/25/2019 - 14:21
Influenza

Scientists report breakthrough with new flu treatment

At present there are two problems with the prevention and treatment of flu. The first is the speed at which the virus mutates meaning that new vaccines have to be found every year. The second is that the virus rapidly becomes resistant to the drugs (such as oseltamivir, baloxavir and amantadine), which just don't really work anyway.

Enter Drug EIDD-2801

An original compound called N-hydroxycytidine (NHC) inhibits flu virus, but the drug is not absorbed well by the body. Scientists therefore altered NHC to create a new compound named EIDD-2801, which then converts back into NHC once inside the body. When tested in animals the new drug prevented all disease progression if given early enough and treatment still caused the fever to end faster if given later in disease progression. According to the paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the new drug is also less likely to be affected by resistance as; "Deep sequencing highlighted lethal viral mutagenesis as the underlying mechanism of activity and revealed a prohibitive barrier to the development of viral resistance".

The paper goes onto report the likely dosage requirements to be effective against the flu virus that says that they; "recommend EIDD-2801 as a clinical candidate with high potential for monotherapy of seasonal and pandemic influenza virus infections". So a way off yet before we have a market ready product, but the early signs are promising.

 

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The raising of the body temperature above norma, which may be accompanied by symptoms such as shivering, headache and sweating. Full medical glossary
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Invasion by organisms that may be harmful, for example bacteria or parasites. Full medical glossary
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