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More than 150,000 people have died with Covid-19, but the drugs have not yet been proven to help doctors treat the disease.
So how far are we from these life-saving medications?
What work is being done to find treatments?
More than 150 different drugs are being investigated worldwide. Most are existing drugs that are being tested against the virus.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched the Solidarity trial aimed at evaluating the most promising treatments.
- The UK says its recovery trial is the largest in the world, with more than 5,000 patients already participating.
- And multiple research centers around the world are trying to use survivors’ blood for treatment.
What types of drugs could work?
Three general approaches are being investigated:
- Antiviral drugs that directly affect the ability of the coronavirus to thrive within the body.
- Medications that can calm the immune system: Patients become seriously ill when their immune system overreacts and begins to cause collateral damage to the body.
- Antibodies, either from survivors’ blood or made in a laboratory, that can attack the virus.
What is the most promising coronavirus drug?
Dr. Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization said that remdesivir was the only drug that showed signs of effectiveness after visiting China.
The antiviral drug was originally designed to treat Ebola, but other options were more effective.
Since then, it has been shown to be effective in treating other deadly coronaviruses (Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome) in animal studies, leading to the hope that it will also be effective against the Covid-19 coronavirus. .
Filtered results from trials led by the University of Chicago also suggested the drug was effective.
It is one of four drugs in the WHO Solidarity trial and its manufacturer, Gilead, is also organizing trials.
What do I need to know about the coronavirus?
Can HIV medications treat coronavirus?
Much has been said, but there is little evidence, that a couple of anti-HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir, are effective in treating the coronavirus.
There has been some evidence that they can work in the laboratory, but human studies have been disappointing.
The combination did not improve recovery, reduce deaths, or decrease virus levels in patients with severe Covid-19.
However, since the trial was conducted on extremely ill patients (nearly a quarter died), it may have been too late in infection for the drugs to work.
Can antimalarial drugs stop the coronavirus?
Malaria drugs are part of the solidarity and recovery trials.
Chloroquine and a related derivative, hydroxychloroquine, may have antiviral and immune-calming properties.
Drugs have been put in the limelight as possible coronavirus therapies, largely due to claims made by President Trump, but there is still little evidence about their effectiveness.
Hydroxychloroquine is also used as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, because it can help regulate the immune system.
Laboratory tests have shown that it can inhibit the coronavirus, and there is some anecdotal evidence from doctors that it appears to help patients.
However, the WHO says there is no definitive evidence of its effectiveness.
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What about immune drugs?
If the immune system overreacts to the virus, it can cause inflammation throughout the body. This is helpful in stimulating the immune system to fight infection, but too much can cause collateral damage throughout the body and can be fatal.
- Coronavirus: what it does to the body
The Solidarity trial is investigating interferon beta, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis and reduce inflammation. Interferons are a group of chemicals released by the body when attacked by a virus.
The UK recovery trial is investigating dexamethasone, a type of steroid used to reduce inflammation.
Can survivors’ blood treat coronavirus?
People who survive an infection should have antibodies in their blood that can attack the virus.
The idea is to take the blood plasma (the part that contains the antibodies) and give it to a sick patient as therapy.
The United States has already treated 500 patients with what is known as “convalescent plasma,” and other countries are also getting involved.
- Test plasma treatment
How long until we have a cure?
It is too early to know when we might have a medicine that can treat coronavirus.
However, we must begin to obtain the results of the trials in the coming months. This is much sooner than we will know if a vaccine (which protects against infection instead of treating it) is effective.
This is because doctors are testing drugs that have already been developed and are known to be safe enough to use, while vaccine researchers start from scratch.
Some completely new experimental coronavirus drugs are also being tested in the laboratory, but are not yet ready for human testing.
Why do we need a treatment?
The most obvious reason to want treatment is that it will save lives, but it could also allow some blocking measures to be lifted.
Having effective treatment, in essence, would make coronavirus a milder disease.
By preventing people admitted to the hospital from needing ventilation, there would be less risk of intensive care units becoming overwhelmed, so controls over people’s lives might not be as tight.
So how do doctors treat patients now?
If you are infected with the coronavirus, it will be mild for most people and can be treated at home with bed rest, acetaminophen, and plenty of fluids.
But some people need more intensive hospital treatment, which involves oxygen support like ventilation.
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