First corona drugs tested on humans, should we be jubilant? | NOW

Although a vaccine against COVID-19 can take at least another year to come, research into medicines and antivirals may offer a solution. Two have the most encouraging results in laboratories, and the first tests on humans have already begun. Can we already cheer or is it still too early for that?

One of those experimental agents, which will become available for seriously ill corona patients, is the virus inhibitor remdesivir. It was originally developed as an anti-Ebola medicine, but it was dropped because other medicines were found to work better against this disease. Remdesivir may still play an important role in the fight against the COVID-19 virus.

Eric Snijder is a virologist at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). He used the drug in his laboratory in infection tests in cell culture models. “It is currently the best we have, but it should certainly not be seen as the miracle cure yet,” he says in conversation with NU.nl.

Dutch hospitals can apply for brake desivir from the American manufacturer Gilead since this week. For the time being, physicians should only administer the drug to critically ill corona patients who are on respiration and whose organs have not yet failed.

“It may end badly for some people”

Until now, only an American and Italian patient has been known to recover after taking remdesivir. Studies are ongoing in China, “but we are still waiting for the first results,” says Snijder.

Tests in cell culture dishes give good results, “but moving from cultured cells to human treatment is a big step,” says the virologist. “In addition, patients are typically in many different stages of the disease, and that variation makes it more difficult to measure performance reliably.”

In addition, not every seriously ill corona patient can get remdesivir, because a control group is always needed that does not receive the drug, Snijder explains. “It seems very difficult for doctors to make these choices, because you know that things can end badly for some people.”

Anti-malarial drug against coronavirus

Another promising drug is the malaria drug chloroquine, which has been on the market since 1934. Researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium discovered last month that the drug may also work against COVID-19.

In China, this drug has been used for some time in seriously ill corona patients and the first results point in the right direction, says Flemish virologist Annemie Vandamme of the Catholic University of Leuven. However, there is no evidence that the drug works clinically. “The first results will soon be published from China.”

Chloroquine in itself, as far as Vandamme can estimate, is “not that powerful”. However, she is hopeful that chloroquine in combination with other products can offer a solution. “In China, that seemed to yield spectacular ad hoc results. The question is whether this will also be at a systematic level.”

Groningen researchers are developing inhalers

At the University of Groningen (RuG), researchers are working on chloroquine in combination with another malaria drug (hydroxychloroquine). They are currently working on the development of special inhalers that will deliver the drugs directly to the lungs, they say in the Ukrant, the news medium of the RuG.

According to Snijder, it is important to administer a combination of several drugs to a patient to prevent a virus from becoming resistant to a drug. “Ideally, you would like to have a handful of resources. It would then become impossible for the virus to become resistant to all parts of that combination. Unfortunately, one such drug is only a finger on the hand.”