Interferon beta-1a turned out to be useless in the treatment of COVID-19, and in cases of severe disease, even dangerous to humans. Some of the patients developed complications during treatment that required mechanical ventilation (ALV).
As stated in research, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, treating patients with the immunomodulator interferon beta-1a does not improve the condition of patients with coronavirus infection. Scientists, led by experts from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the US National Institutes of Health, still call their conclusions “positive”, since “it gives an idea of which medications are worth and which should not be used in anticonvulsant therapy.”
Scientists came to this conclusion during an international medical study. It was attended by nearly a thousand patients from 63 hospitals in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Its participants were divided into two groups: one was given a combination of Interferon beta-1a and the antiviral drug Remdesevir, and the other – only Remdesevir. The latter was used as an active control after it was found to be beneficial over placebo for reducing recovery time from COVID-19.
It turned out that the combination of interferon and remdesevir did not bring clinical benefit. The time during which the covidballs began to recover, for both the experimental and control groups, was five days. Improvement in the condition in both groups was observed after two weeks of therapy.
Moreover, during the experiment, the researchers stopped recruiting seriously ill COVID-19 patients, as they noticed that their condition while taking this combination was harmful. According to scientists, this is due to the fact that interferon enhances the inflammatory response.
Interferons are proteins that the body secretes during the invasion of viruses and a number of bacteria. Interferons themselves do not directly affect the virus, but interact with infected cells, forcing them to suppress the synthesis of viral particles, activate proteins that contribute to the death of infected cells, and stimulate hundreds of genes that play a role in protecting cells from the virus. As a rule, interferons are prescribed when the body’s immune response should be enhanced.
It is known that the elderly are most acutely deficient in their own interferon, which makes them more susceptible to viral and bacterial infections, including coronavirus infection.
As reported OBOZREVATEL, the medic said, how to be treated for coronavirus at home and in what cases you should immediately seek medical attention.
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