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Hopes that the currently occurring coronavirus can be combated quickly and effectively with existing HIV medications have been dashed: This is shown by the first clinical study in seriously ill Covid 19 patients.
After a woman got well after taking HIV medication, the scientists wanted to know exactly
In early February, a woman in Thailand was said to have had coronavirus eliminated after taking a combination of HIV and flu drugs. This was the HIV drug Kaletra, which contains the active substances lopinavir and ritonavir, two protease inhibitors. In the case of RNA viruses, these can prevent the multiplication process from starting.
Scientists wanted to test this: But with Covid-19 the effect was not as great as hoped. “In hospitalized adult patients with severe Covid-19 disease, there was no benefit registered with lopinavir / ritonavir compared to standard therapy,” wrote the team of authors headed by Chinese pneumologist Bin Cao in the journal New England Journal of Medicine.
With the HIV medication, the patients were shorter in the intensive care unit
This was tested in Wuhan on a group of 199 patients with a severe course of the disease. 99 of them, chosen at random, received the HIV active substances lopinavir and ritonavir in addition to the standard therapy. The disease developed little differently for them. “The mortality after 28 days was similar in the lopinavir / ritonavir group with 19.2 percent versus 25 percent in the group with standard therapy,” said the scientists.
However, the researchers emphasize that research must continue in this direction. Because the study only included patients with very severe Covid 19 courses for whom another medication could work better. A closer look showed that the patients additionally treated with the HIV active substances only needed six days of intensive medical treatment, whereas this time was 11 days with the standard therapy. Also, more of them felt better after 14 days.
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