INVESTIGATION
Will we be able to treat coronavirus soon? The question is posed more and more urgently, while the epidemic has suddenly accelerated in France, where there are 5,000 cases and 120 deaths. Drastic containment measures have been put in place and resuscitation services in several regions are alerting to the risk of saturation. At the same time, research is progressing but will not lead to treatment for at least one month. Europe 1 investigated.
Lots of effective treatments … in the laboratory
Three promising clinical trials are currently underway using antiviral drugs, which already exist and are used in the treatment of HIV. Their names: Remdesivir, Kaletra and Kaletra-interferon. The latter is an antiviral coupled to a molecule that regulates the patient’s immune system, to prevent collateral damage caused by the virus.
According to Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, who coordinates research for France, many treatments have in fact already shown efficacy in the laboratory, in test tubes. It remains to start testing them in humans, on patients with coronavirus, hospitalized in a severe state. But this step is only taken on one condition: that scientists are sure that these molecules are not toxic to patients.
One of these trials, with Lopinavir-interferon, starts this week in several French hospitals. It must be practiced on 800 patients in France and 3,200 in total worldwide. Other trials have been conducted in China, but their results are not considered conclusive due to the size of the samples tested.
No vaccine for at least a year
When will the first drugs be ready? “If the treatments are very effective, we get them very quickly,” replies Yazdan Yazdanpanah, referring to a delay of “one or two months”. “Otherwise in my opinion, it can last two or three months,” he adds. Note that the trials all start with existing drugs, the “new” treatments taking much longer to be developed.
As for tests, if we believe the Italian company DiaSorin, led by a billionaire, the situation could change very quickly: the company says that a rapid screening test, in 1 hour instead of seven, is ready. The ready-to-use kit could be on the market by the end of March and emergency marketing authorizations for the European and American markets have been requested. What hope that we can perform a much faster and more efficient sorting in patient queues.
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