Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a hepatotropic virus, with about 80 million chronic infections confirmed worldwide. HCV infection leads to the development of chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and in some instances, hepatocellular ...
Apr 10, 2019
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The first prospective, longitudinal study investigating treatment of chronic hepatitis C with direct-acting antivirals finds that the treatment is associated with reduced risk of mortality and liver cancer, according to a ...
Feb 12, 2019
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People sometimes suffer toxic side effects from drugs that help many others. Yale scientists have identified a surprising explanation—the gut microbiome.
Feb 08, 2019
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A large, multi-center study refutes earlier suggestions that antiviral drugs for treating hepatitis C may lead to a higher recurrence of liver cancer.
Jan 18, 2019
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(HealthDay)—The flu has ramped up in time for Christmas, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Dec 22, 2018
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The largest population study of hepatitis C in Africa has found three new strains of the virus circulating in the general population in sub-Saharan Africa. The research from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the MRC-University ...
Dec 17, 2018
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Another flu season is here, which means another chance for viruses to mutate. Already, most influenza A viruses contain a mutation that confers resistance against one class of antiviral medications, and the bugs are steadily ...
Oct 24, 2018
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What causes Alzheimer's disease? The answer could be right under our noses, says leading expert Professor Ruth Itzhaki. Her latest paper presents a lifetime of research evidence that the herpes virus responsible for cold ...
Oct 19, 2018
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(HealthDay)—There's growing evidence that the herpes virus responsible for cold sores also may cause Alzheimer's disease, a new research paper contends.
Oct 19, 2018
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The World Health Organisation set a goal to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030. The NHS recently announced that it will go one better than that: it will eliminate the disease in England by 2025. In theory, the goal is achievable, ...
Feb 05, 2018
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Antiviral drugs are a class of medication used specifically for treating viral infections. Like antibiotics for bacteria, specific antivirals are used for specific viruses. Unlike antibiotics, antiviral drugs do not destroy their target pathogen but inhibit their development.
Antiviral drugs are one class of antimicrobials, a larger group which also includes antibiotic, antifungal and antiparasitic drugs. They are relatively harmless to the host, and therefore can be used to treat infections. They should be distinguished from viricides, which are not medication but destroy virus particles outside the body.
Most of the antivirals now available are designed to help deal with HIV, herpes viruses (best known for causing cold sores and genital herpes, but actually causing a wide range of diseases), the hepatitis B and C viruses, which can cause liver cancer, and influenza A and B viruses. Researchers are working to extend the range of antivirals to other families of pathogens.
Designing safe and effective antiviral drugs is difficult, because viruses use the host's cells to replicate. This makes it difficult to find targets for the drug that would interfere with the virus without harming the host organism's cells.
The emergence of antivirals is the product of a greatly expanded knowledge of the genetic and molecular function of organisms, allowing biomedical researchers to understand the structure and function of viruses, major advances in the techniques for finding new drugs, and the intense pressure placed on the medical profession to deal with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of the deadly acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic.
Almost all anti-microbials, including anti-virals, are subject to drug resistance as the pathogens mutate over time, becoming less susceptible to the treatment. For instance, a recent study published in Nature Biotechnology emphasized the urgent need for augmentation of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) stockpiles with additional antiviral drugs including zanamivir (Relenza) based on an evaluation of the performance of these drugs in the scenario that the 2009 H1N1 'Swine Flu' neuraminidase (NA) were to acquire the tamiflu-resistance (His274Tyr) mutation which is currently wide-spread in seasonal H1N1 strains.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
