A second person has been infected with the coronavirus in the United States. Teams of American researchers are studying the trail of existing products to block infection.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), US government institutions that deal with medical and biomedical research, are working hard to find a cure for the novel coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Indeed, after a second person infected with this virus was identified in the United States (after a stay in Saudi Arabia), researchers recently screened a set of 290 molecules already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). . The goal of this “screening”, to find if these already known molecules have the potential to block the infection from the perspective of drug research.
Anticancer drugs to fight against MERS-CoV?
Among them, the scientists identified 27 which, in test tube experiments, showed activity against both MERS -CoV and the SARS-related coronavirus of 2008. These compounds would, according to them, inhibit the the ability of viruses to enter cells and then infect them.
In detail, the updated active substances belong to 13 different categories of pharmaceuticals, including products commonly used to treat cancer and psychiatric disorders.
Now, this team wishes to continue this work by conducting studies on animals and then in the medium term in humans. Moreover, the research team is already studying in the laboratory on mice infected with MERS-CoV the effects of some of the compounds identified.
“Considering the development times and manufacturing requirements of new products, reorienting existing drugs is probably the only solution for epidemics caused by emerging viruses,” conceded this team.
As a reminder, the death toll of the MERS coronavirus is increasing day by day. In Saudi Arabia, it rose to 175 deaths after two new deaths, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday, the first outbreak of the disease which appeared in 2012. To date, it is believed to have more than 180 deaths worldwide. And since September 2012, more than 500 cases of the MERS-CoV coronavirus have been confirmed.
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