Since the start of the Covid-19 health crisis, several drugs have been tested to try to treat patients who are already infected. Some have not been proven, others turned out to be interesting at the very beginning of the disease. This time around, Israeli researchers believe they have found the long-awaited cure, through three treatments, which are said to be according to the Times of Israel “Almost 100% effective”. What drugs are these?
It would be a drug used against HIV, the name of which has not yet been released, another against atherosclerosis (a disease that clutters the arteries, explains Inserm) which is called Darapladib, and finally Flumatinib, an anticancer drug under study (in phase 3 in 2020, according to the e-cancer site) against chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Molecules that attack the envelope of the virus
These three molecules would have been proven against cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. That is to say thatthey would have allowed cells infected with Covid-19 to stay alive. “For example, under classic circumstances, about half of the cells would have died within two days of contact with the virus,” said study director, Professor Isaiah Arkin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
As we already know, the virus has a protein which has the shape of a point, which is called “Spike” and which is the one that attacks and infects cells. Until now, it is she that we have been trying to neutralize. This time around, Israeli researchers have tried to attack the virus from another angle: with drugs that would instead target the membrane that envelops the virus. This could be all the more interesting as the latter keeps a certain stability from one variant to another. In fact, despite the changes, this type of approach could remain effective.
That said, this study was carried out in laboratories, “in vitro”, and does not currently allow us to say that these molecules will be able to help or save infected patients.
Source: Times of Israel, July 20, 2021
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