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An antiviral drug still in the experimental phase can accelerate the elimination of the new coronavirus in outpatients, helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community, concluded a clinical study conducted in Canada.
The research led by the University Health Network (UHN) of Toronto, published this Friday in the scientific bulletin “Lancet Respiratory Medicine”, concluded that treatment with the antiviral peginterferon-lambda allowed infected people to eliminate the SARS-coronavirus CoV-2 more quickly, showing better results in patients who had higher viral loads.
Cases with a higher viral load are associated with potentially more serious illness and an increased risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to other people.
According to the study, patients who received a single injection of peginterferon-lambda, developed for the treatment of viral hepatitis, were four times more likely to cure the infection in a period of just seven days, compared to the group that received a placebo. .
Researchers defend that this antiviral treatment can assume an important function to treat infected people and, at the same time, help to control the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2, at a greater height than there are still few vaccines against covid-19 in all the world.
“This treatment has great therapeutic potential, especially at this time, when several aggressive variants of the coronavirus are spreading around the world, being less sensitive to vaccines and antibody treatment,” said Jordan Feld, co-director of the liver research center. Schwartz Reisman, UHN.
According to the researcher, the group of people who were treated with this antiviral showed a “tendency to a more rapid improvement of respiratory symptoms.”
“If we can quickly reduce the level of virus load, people are less likely to transmit the infection to others and we may even be able to shorten the time required for self-isolation,” said Jordan Feld.
‘Interferon lambda’ is a protein produced by the human body, in response to viral infections, which has the ability to activate various cellular pathways to eliminate invading viruses.
The new coronavirus prevents the body from producing this protein, thus preventing it from being controlled by the immune system of the infected person.
In practice, ‘interferon-lambda’ treatment activated the same virus elimination pathways in cells, the UHN study concluded.
The antiviral peginterferon-lambda used in this study is a long-acting version of a drug developed by Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, which can be administered as a single injection under the skin, in an insulin-like procedure.
This study conducted in Toronto, between May and November 2020, involved a universe of 60 participants, 30 of whom received the antiviral, while the rest received a placebo.
According to the UHN, in view of the results obtained, phase 3 of this investigation is planned, which should begin soon.
In parallel, other investigations are underway on the use of peginterferon-lambda in hospitalized patients and in places where it can be used to prevent infections, by the universities of Toronto, Harvard and Johns Hopkins.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed at least 2,285,334 deaths as a result of more than 104.8 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 13,740 people died from 755,774 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
