Not only does the old malaria drug chloroquine work surprisingly well against novel coronavirus, but it's generic, cheap, and widely available. The FDA still isn't willing to go out on a limb saying it's a treatment whose benefits clearly outweigh its risks, but President Trump is leaning hard on them not to get in the way. Sure, we need some traditional, slow double-blind studies. In the meantime, doctors are free to prescribe existing approved drugs for off-label uses in their own discretion. This one's results in Asia were so promising that people in influential positions, including NY Gov. Cuomo, are clamoring for it, and manufacturers already have taken the hint.
We should be able to see a pattern where identifiable populations are taking prophylactic malaria treatments.
A cold based virus has become malaria now?
ReplyDeleteSomething is tinkering with these genetic sequences.
I didn't think it was widely used anymore, thanks to evolved drug resistance. But perhaps the others in use involve similar pathways.
ReplyDeleteWe knew that chloroquine seemed to help with SARS coronavirus although, if I understand what I'm reading, no one did patient studies because SARS calmed down.
ReplyDeletehttps://blog.dokteronline.com/en/chloroquine-potentialtreatment-coronavirus
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
If chloroquine works against the Wuhan coronavirus as well, the entire world should start going to church regularly.
"...the Wuhan coronavirus..."
ReplyDeleteWhy, Elise!
"...the entire world should start going to church regularly."
Not the worst plan I ever heard.
Whose church though? Haha. Humans compete over which church is correct.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vk5Oikb-70
James, I think it may still be used as a prophylactic, even if it's not effective any more in treating active cases.
ReplyDeleteWhose church though?
ReplyDeleteTheirs, of course. :)
Ah, here we are: "However, after the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax began exhibiting resistance to the drug in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively, it was replaced by similar antimalarial compounds and combination therapies. Chloroquine is still widely used against the three other species of plasmodium and to treat autoimmune disorders and some cases of amebiasis, an intestinal infection caused by the amoeba Entamoeba histolytica." As for why something that works against the malaria parasite might also work against a virus, not to mention an amoeba, it seems to have something to do with the fact that all these pathogens invade the cell, maybe in a similar way. Chloroquine is said to make some part of the interior of the cell more basic, whereas the virus (and maybe the malaria plasmodium?) needs that area to be acidic in order to do something or other. Some articles claim zinc is involved somehow. For some reason, adding azithromycin helps, even though that's an antibiotic. Who knows, some complicated chemical pathway. Anyway, they had some early success with chloroquine in the SARS outbreak, as Elise noted, so it occurred to them quickly to try it on this related virus, and the results were promising, though obviously inconclusive, given the small sample size. Patients in bad shape were reported to improve rapidly overnight.
ReplyDelete"...the Wuhan coronavirus..."
ReplyDeleteWhy, Elise!
I know - shame on me. :+)
I'm re-reading The Last Centurion and last night I got to this passage where the author is writing about the early days of his fictional Chinese virus, H5N1:
There was even an over-the-counter medication that increased survival rate if taken immediately on first symptoms. Many people starting using it as a prophylactic until it ran out and probably caused H5N1 to develop its resistance.
I was hoping chloroquine was not something to which a resistance could be developed; bad news about the parasites but hopefully not true for viruses.
Tex says" Chloroquine is still widely used ... to treat autoimmune disorders
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the problem -- virus, bacteria, parasite, or phage -- the human response system risks over-reaction. The quinine isn't co-attacking the invaders, so much, as calming the defenders.
Interesting. What seems like ages ago but was probably only last week, I read a theory that the reason children were so little affected and older people so badly was that (put roughly) the older we are, the more our immune systems react and thus over-react. I find this a reason for hope personally since although I am in my 60s my immune system is only 21.
ReplyDeleteTrump followup: "Right to Try has been an incredible success. But this is beyond Right to Try. If treatments known to be safe in Europe, Japan, or other nations are effective against the virus, we’ll use that information to protect the health and safety of American people. Nothing will stand in our way as we pursue any avenue to find what best works against this horrible virus."
ReplyDeleteHere's a study from Showing Remdesivir and Cholorquine being effective *in vitro* against ChiCom Wuhan Bat virus. From late January.
ReplyDelete