Immunotherapy tocilizumab is already prescribed for people with acute rheumatoid arthritis, but experiments now prove it can be used in people with coronavirus in months without the need for trials.
British scientists support, according to a Mirror website report, that the use of immunotherapy on Covid-19 patients, insisting it could save lives.
Medical experts are now pressing, according to a British newspaper report, to conduct more urgent research on the effect of the tocilizumab immune system drug on the deadly corona virus.-
Arthritis medication–
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Dr. Doug Brown, President of the British Society of Immunology, said similar drugs have helped seriously ill patients in Spain, adding: “Immunotherapy is a viable option that can save lives.”
Professor Kevin Harrington, biological therapist at the Institute for Cancer Research, agreed: “There is a real possibility that this could save the lives of coronavirus patients who would otherwise die.
“And the hope is that those who would have survived the virus, which means less time on the ventilator and less time in intensive care.”
“You will probably use this in patients with the most severe diseases, which is quite a reasonable idea,” added Professor Will Irving of the University of Nottingham, UK virologist, added.
How does immunotherapy work on the Corona virus?
The drug attacks small proteins called cytokines that overstimulate the immune system, and have an inflammatory effect in arthritis patients, which are amplified in the lung tissues of Covid-19 and other organs.-
It is believed that “tusilizumab” could give victims of seriously ill viruses a better chance, and doctors today can use tusilizumab legally on a coronary patient, but they will have to accept personal responsibility.
“These treatments do not have a license for Covid, but some doctors have tried to reuse Tucilizumab and it seems to have had some effect,” said Dr. Brown, president of the British Society of Immunology.
He urged more research: “Once the data is collected widely, it is really important that we disseminate the data and provide the doctors with the information they need to make the right decisions.” Tocilizumab can also be licensed specifically for coronavirus if it goes through traditional experiments.
This comes at a time when the United States has allowed emergency use of anti-viral Ebola to treat Covid-19, and a recent clinical trial has shown that the drug helped shorten the recovery time for serious patients, although it did not significantly improve survival rates.
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