How Flu and HIV Meds May Help

How Flu and HIV Meds May Help Fight the New Coronavirus
Healthline
Written by Julia Ries on February 3, 2020

Treatment with supportive care

Because we don’t have a targeted treatment against the new coronavirus that’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), people who’ve contracted the coronavirus are treated with supportive careTrusted Source.

Supportive care treats the symptoms — such as fever, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, and fatigue — not the virus itself.

It helps keep people comfortable while their bodies fight off the infection, according to Dr. Margot Savoy, a practicing family physician and chair of family and community medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

“This can include medication treatments to reduce the fever (antipyretics [like ibuprofen and acetaminophen], cool baths), hydration, and, if necessary, respiratory support from oxygen to artificial ventilation,” Savoy told Healthline.

Keep in mind that many people who contract the coronavirus experience relatively mild symptoms and are expected to recover.

And in many cases, supportive care has been enough to get the patient back on track and avoid complications.

“This is an acute infectious disease, and there are many mild cases whose recovery mimics that of recovery from the flu,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

Other interventions are showing promise
Meanwhile, scientists are putting antivirals to the test to determine whether any might have what it takes to fight the coronavirus.

“For people who become very ill, they are using antivirals we currently use for other viral infections, and there is at least one experimental drug that was used in a case that is sparking hope for wider use,” Savoy said.

One such example are the antivirals already approved for HIV: lopinavir and ritonavir. Researchers are currently studying whether these drugs could be repurposed against the coronavirus.

Early reports say patients with the new coronavirus in Thailand improved within 48 hours of receiving the HIV treatment in conjunction with the flu medication oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

A study from 2004 showed that the HIV drugs helped people with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that broke out in 2002, and improved their health outcomes.

Now scientists in China are studyingTrusted Source whether the drugs will have the same effect on the Wuhan coronavirus as it did on SARS.

Furthermore, an experimental antiviral known as remdesivir that’s manufactured by Gilead Sciences “has shown some promise in laboratory-based studies against coronaviruses, and it will be important to conduct clinical trials to determine whether it is effective in patients with coronavirus infections,” Adalja said.

Remdesivir was given to the patient in Washington, the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States. After given the antivirals, the patient’s condition improved, according to a new report detailing the case.

The drug is still being tested as a coronavirus treatment and has yet to be licensed or approved.

According to Savoy, there are about 30 medications being developed by different companies.

“Because this novel coronavirus is in the same family as the recent new infections MERS and SARS, scientists can use the work they have been doing for those infections to apply to the 2019 coronavirus,” Savoy said.

The medications will need to be studied and analyzed further before becoming a standard treatment.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-doctors-are-treating-the-new-coronavirus

Remdesivir and Chloroquine have also shown promise; major study underway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfGpdFNHoqQ

Great if HIV meds will help but how many of those meds are out there and can they make them fast and how expensive? Lots of questions!