PARIS – Researchers in Hong Kong have found that patients suffering milderillness caused by the new coronavirus recover more quickly if they aretreated with a three-drug antiviral cocktail soon after symptoms appear.
Authors of the study, published in the Lancet on Friday, described thefindings as “early but important”.
They called for larger-scale research on critically-ill patients toascertain if the drug combo could be a viable treatment for them too.
“Our trial demonstrates that early treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19with a triple combination of antiviral drugs may rapidly suppress theamount of virus in a patient’s body,” said Kwok-Yung Yuen, professor at theUniversity of Hong Kong, who led the research.
He said the treatment, which appeared safe in patients, was shown to”relieve symptoms, and reduce the risk to health-care workers by reducingthe duration and quantity of viral shedding (when the virus is detectableand potentially transmissible)”.
Scientists are racing to identify effective medicines to use against thenew coronavirus, but there is currently no treatment, cure or vaccine.
The study tracked the virus in 127 adults admitted to six hospitals in HongKong after they tested positive.
Of those participating, 86 patients were given a two-week course of threemedicines: interferon beta-1b, a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis; HIVdrugs lopinavir-ritonavir; and ribavirin, used to treat hepatitis.
A randomly-assigned control group of 41 people was just given thelopinavir-ritonavir combination.
Treatment began on average five days after symptoms started and allpatients otherwise received standard care, including oxygen therapy.
Researchers then measured how long it took for a swab test for the virus toturn out negative.
They found that those taking all three medicines were able to clear thecoronavirus in seven days on average (between five and 11 days) –“significantly” shorter than the 12-day average for the control group.
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Those on the three-drug regimen also saw a complete alleviation of theirsymptoms in an average of four days, compared to eight for the controlgroup.
The study was carried out between February 10 and March 20 in Hong Kong,where everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 is admitted to hospital.
The authors conceded several limitations with the trial, including that itwas “open label” — people knew which drugs they were taking and there wasno placebo.
Also, patients admitted more than seven days after the onset of symptomswere not given interferon because of concerns that it could causeinflammation.
Of these, 34 were given the combination of lopinavir-ritonavir andribavirin, while 17 were in the control group.
Both of these groups took equally long to clear the virus which, theauthors suggested, meant that interferon was key to the shorter illness forthe patients treated from the first week of symptoms.
“Future clinical study of a double antiviral therapy with interferonbeta-1b as a backbone is warranted,” the study said.
Reacting to the study, Stephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology atthe London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it “justifies theconsideration of adding interferon beta to the list of genuinely,evidence-based, promising treatments to be tested in further randomisedtrials.
“It has been clear from long experience that HIV is best treated withcombinations of different drugs and this could also be the case withCOVID-19,” he added. -APP/AFP
