Jon Dougherty
Often, the best treatments for new diseases come from existing medications that were designed to treat other ailments, and it appears as though that might be the case with the virus that causes COVID-19.
The studies “show a commonly available anti-malaria drug known as chloroquine aka chloroquine phosphate is showing strong results against COVID-19 infections in both China and South Korea,” the site notes, citing information contained in a report published by Nature.
The summary of one of those studies was presented by Dr. James M. Todaro, MD and Gregory J. Rigano, Esq., “In consultation with Stanford University School of Medicine, UAB School of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences researchers,” and it says:
Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019. Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay.
US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed. Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions.
Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Chloroquine (also known as chloroquine phosphate) is an antimalarial medicine… Chloroquine is available in the United States by prescription only… Chloroquine can be prescribed for either prevention or treatment of malaria. Chloroquine can be prescribed to adults and children of all ages. It can also be safely taken by pregnant women and nursing mothers.”
CDC research also indicates that “chloroquine can affect virus infection in many ways, and the antiviral effect depends in part on the extent to which the virus utilizes endosomes for entry. Chloroquine has been widely used to treat human diseases, such as malaria, amoebiosis, HIV, and autoimmune diseases, without significant detrimental side effects.”
Doctors in China and South Korea have noted that the coronavirus patients treated with chloroquine have shown reduced fever and better lung CT images, and so far research has not found any negative effects of the treatment.
The FDA has been working closely with other government agencies and academic centers that are investigating the use of the drug chloroquine, which is already approved for treating malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, to determine whether it can be used to treat patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to potentially reduce the duration of symptoms, as well as viral shedding, which can help prevent the spread of disease. Studies are underway to determine the efficacy in using chloroquine to treat COVID-19.
Biopharma companies have scrambled to start new R&D projects and repurpose existing medicines amid the COVID-19 crisis. Now, Bayer is donating an older treatment to the U.S. government for potential use.
The company is donating 3 million tablets of malaria medicine chloroquine, a decades-old drug that's available for cheap. Axios first reported news of the donation Wednesday, citing a senior HHS official and another source with knowledge of the plan.
Bayer confirmed the donation Thursday.
Chloroquine isn’t approved to treat patients suffering from novel coronavirus infections, but some early studies have shown promise.
In France, for instance, a professor conducted a small study of the malaria drug in 24 patients with novel coronavirus infections. Of those who received the medicine, only 25% tested positive for the virus after 6 days, according to en24. Meanwhile, of those who didn't receive it, 90% tested positive after that timeframe. The French government now plans to run larger studies.
In a study published last month in Nature, authors wrote that “chloroquine is a cheap and a safe drug that has been used for more than 70 years and, therefore, it is potentially clinically applicable against the 2019-nCoV.”
While there’s certainly more to learn about the potential therapy, chloroquine is just one of several drugs being explored to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic.
What do malaria and COVID-19 have in common? On the surface, not much. But according to early research, an old malaria drug called chloroquine might also work for the new coronavirus.
Could a decades-old malaria drug work to treat COVID-19?
Chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, has been used to treat malaria since 1944. It can be given before exposure to malaria to prevent infection, and it can also be given as treatment afterward.
Malaria is a disease that is caused by a parasite, unlike COVID-19. Nevertheless, laboratory studies show chloroquine is effective at preventing as well as treating the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a close cousin of COVID-19.
Given chloroquine’s effectiveness in treating SARS, scientists have investigated if it will be an effective treatment against the new coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. So far, the initial trials are encouraging.
"There is evidence that chloroquine is effective when they looked at SARS in vitro with primate cells," said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonologist and internist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "The theory of the experiment with primate cells was that chloroquine could be for preventing viral infection or as a treatment for viral infection after it had occurred. In vitro in these primate cells, there was evidence that viral particles were significantly reduced when chloroquine was used."
Both the virus that causes SARS and the virus responsible for COVID-19 belong to the same overarching family of coronaviruses. Researchers in China discovered that the protein spikes on the surface of the COVID-19 virus are similar to the protein spikes found on the surface of the SARS virus.
People become infected when those protein spikes bind to special receptors on the outside of human cells. Chloroquine works by interfering with those receptors, which may interfere with the virus’s ability to bind to cells.
"The way that it worked against SARS was by preventing of the attachment of the virus to the cells. Chloroquine interfered with the attachment to that receptor on the cell membrane surface," Horovitz said. "So it’s disrupting a lock and key kind of mechanism of attachment."
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