London:
A new drug mixture can suppress infection by the S-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, according to a study performed in animals and cell cultures.
Early test final results, published in the journal Viruses, located that the combined use of the antiviral drugs nafamostat and Pegasys meets all availability and efficacy specifications.
“This combination effectively suppresses the infection,” stated Denis Kainov, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU).
The experiments had been performed in cell cultures and hamsters, the researchers stated.
They noted that this does not necessarily imply that the mixture functions in humans, but could be a hot tip for researchers who are currently testing nafamostat in the fight against COVID-19.
According to the researchers nafamostat is currently in use as a monotherapy against COVID-19 and is undergoing comprehensive testing in Japan, amongst other areas.
Pegasys is at the moment utilised mostly to treat hepatitis C. Combining the two seems to have a positive impact, they stated.
“Both drugs attack a factor in our cells called TMPRSS2, which plays a critical role in viral replication,” stated Magnar Bjoras, a professor at NTNU.
The researchers noted that only low doses of the mixture medicine are required.
“The low doses of the drugs in combination may have several clinical advantages. including fewer adverse events and improved outcomes for patients,” stated Aleksandr Ianevski, a doctoral analysis fellow at NTNU.
The researchers think the mixture medicine can each save lives and make life less difficult for patients.
Nafamostat is reasonably low-cost though the downside of Pegasys is its greater expense, they noted.
“S-CoV-2 and its vaccine/immune-escaping variants continue to pose a serious threat to public health due to a paucity of effective, rapidly deployable, and widely available treatments,” the authors of the study noted.
“Our study may provide a proactive solution for the ongoing pandemic and potential future coronavirus outbreaks, which is still urgently required in many parts of the world,” they added.
Apart from NTNU, other researchers in the study are from Oslo University Hospital, the University of Oslo, each in Norway, the French precision medicine organization Oncodesign, the University of Tartu in Estonia and the University of Helsinki in Finland.
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