Researchers across the world have responded rapidly to COVID-19—a new disease that we don't yet know how to treat. In the search to find safe and effective treatments, teams of scientists are looking into more than 200 ...
May 29, 2020
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As the end of the second world war neared, mass production of the newly developed antibiotic penicillin enabled life-saving treatment of bacterial infections in wounded soldiers. Since then, penicillin and many other antibiotics ...
May 08, 2020
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Antiviral drugs could help us fight the new coronavirus, but currently, we don't have a highly potent, effective antiviral that cures COVID-19.
May 07, 2020
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Korean researchers have screened 48 FDA-approved drugs against SARS-CoV-2, and found that two, that are already FDA-approved for other illnesses, seem promising. The FDA approval for other uses would greatly reduce the time ...
May 05, 2020
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While COVID-19 has infected millions of people worldwide and killed hundreds of thousands, there is currently no vaccine. In response, researchers have been evaluating the effectiveness of various antiviral drugs as possible ...
May 04, 2020
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With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to spread across the globe, Scripps Research has quickly established an international network of collaborating scientific laboratories to leverage ReFRAME, the world's leading drug repurposing ...
Apr 16, 2020
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Baloxavir treatment reduced transmission of the flu virus from infected ferrets to healthy ferrets, suggesting that the antiviral drug could contribute to the early control of influenza outbreaks by limiting community-based ...
Apr 15, 2020
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We've all heard the advice from public health officials: stay at home, wash your hands and don't touch your face! We've canceled sporting events, concerts and other mass gatherings; closed schools, libraries and playgrounds; ...
Apr 10, 2020
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Scientists are hopeful that a new drug—called EIDD-2801—could change the way doctors treat COVID-19. The drug shows promise in reducing lung damage, has finished testing in mice and will soon move to human clinical trials.
Apr 06, 2020
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University of Alberta researchers are racing against the clock to test an antiviral drug that has been proven to cure a cat coronavirus and is hoped to have the same effect on people with COVID-19.
Apr 01, 2020
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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
