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A study found that a combination of three drugs suppressed the coronavirus in seven days when used in patients in Hong Kong, almost twice as fast as the individual drug seen as a leading hope in fighting the pandemic.
The findings of the research, led by academics from the University of Hong Kong and published in The Lancet on Saturday, could indicate progress in the search for a standard form of therapy for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease of Covid-19.
He found that using the antiviral drugs interferon beta-1b, lopinavir-ritonavir, and ribavirin together was “safe and more effective” in reducing the duration of virus shedding, when the coronavirus is detectable and potentially transmissible, for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. , while accelerating your recovery.
Antivirals were said to be more effective compared to just using lopinavir-ritonavir, the anti-HIV drug also known by its brand name, Kaletra.
Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a leading infectious disease expert who led the study, said: “Our trial shows that early treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 with a triple combination of antiviral drugs can rapidly suppress the amount of virus in A patient’s body relieves symptoms and reduces the risk to healthcare workers by reducing the duration and amount of virus shedding.
“The treatment combination seemed safe and well tolerated by the patients.”
The drug interferon was developed to treat multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease. Ribavirin was commonly used to treat hepatitis C.
But the researchers said a larger trial would be needed to confirm whether the triple regimen would be effective in patients with more severe symptoms.
The latest study included 127 adult Covid-19 patients who were admitted to one of the city’s six public hospitals between February 10 and March 20.
Among them, 86 received the combined treatment and the remaining 41 only received Kaletra.
It found that those who received the combined medications had their viral load effectively suppressed within an average of seven days of starting treatment, compared to the average of 12 days in the single medication control group.
Those who underwent triple therapy also had their symptoms completely alleviated on average four days, half the eight-day period for those in the control group.
[[nid:486987]]They also had a significantly shorter average hospital stay: nine days instead of 14.5 in the other group of patients.
Patients who received the combined treatment before, within a week of symptom onset, had better clinical outcomes than those on the Kaletra course at the same time, the scientists also identified.
Dr. Sarah Shalhoub, an infectious disease expert at the University of Western Canada who was not involved in the study, said the study was “a step toward finding a much-needed therapy for Sars-CoV-2.”
Separately, the researchers were also conducting trials on the effectiveness of remdesivir, a drug originally developed for Ebola, in treating Covid-19, with Hong Kong among the study hosts.
This article was first published in the South China Morning Post.
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