Coronavirus: Trump vows to speed up malaria drug Chloroquine

Donald Trump promised today to speed up an antimalarial drug called Chloroquine to treat coronavirus in the U.S. after it was used in China and South Korea.

His announcement was in stark contrast to Boris Johnson, who will not say whether Britain will test it – revealing that the first trial of a possible cure involves only one patient.

Researchers around the world are desperate for a cure amid fears that thousands more will be affected by the life-threatening disease.

The British Prime Minister, who also announced that the UK is going to buy “hundreds of thousands” of antibody kits, has not disclosed what drug the British patient was receiving.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump said the drug would be available “ almost immediately ” to patients with the virus, despite not having been formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Access to prescriptions will be expanded to allow U.S. health officials to collect data on how patients respond.

The action put pressure on the British government after enraged Britons launched a petition in which they named No. 10 to start trials with the same drug, available without a prescription.

Officials last month banned drugs to export chloroquine – and an HIV drug – to protect UK supplies of the experimental treatments.

It’s unclear how much stock the UK currently has – and the Department of Health has not yet responded to a request for comment from MailOnline this evening.

Speaking at a Downing Street news conference on the growing threat that COVID-19 poses to the UK today, Mr. Johnson said: “Today we put the first UK corona patient in a randomized trial of drugs that can treat the disease.

He also revealed that scientists plan to start vaccine trials within a month, but warned that it will “take time to get started.”

Mr. Johnson added, “To give you an idea of ​​what’s coming up, we’re negotiating today to buy a so-called antibody test, as simple as a pregnancy test that can tell if you’ve had the disease and Back in the days.

“But if it works as the proponents claim, we will literally buy hundreds of thousands of these kits as soon as possible.

“Because of course it has the potential to be a total game changer.”

Mr. Johnson said, “At the same time, we are testing tremendously to see if you have it now, increasing daily tests from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then to 250,000.”

It came after Trump revealed that the anti-malarial drug chloroquine would soon be followed for use as a treatment against the new coronavirus.

Mr. Trump said the drug would be available “almost immediately” for patients with the virus who request it from their doctor.

While the drug has not yet been formally approved by the FDA, access to prescriptions will be extended to allow officials to collect data on how patients respond.

This is known as ‘compassionate use’.

Trump said, “They’ve gone through the approval process – it’s been approved. They made it from many, many months to immediately. So we can make that drug available on prescription. ‘

But FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn later indicated that while the drug has not yet been formally approved, access to the drug was extended to allow the authorities to gather more data.

“We’ll be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that’s where the FDA gas was so great,” Trump told reporters.

When furious British heard that other countries were following rapid trials of the drug, they launched an online petition calling on the NHS to do the same.

The change.org petition was entitled ‘Start an immediate UK study for Chloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 (Coronavirus)’.

It says, “This treatment is readily available, inexpensive to manufacture, and is patent-free.

“We should immediately test this treatment in patients who have developed Covid-19 associated pneumonia.”

Chloroquine is an anti-malarial drug that works by preventing parasites from multiplying in the body and can stop the coronavirus by making the inside of a cell too dangerous to let in a virus.

Two versions of it – chloroquinephosphate and hydroxychloroquine – were on a list of drugs that have banned the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) companies from buying for the purpose of exporting them.

Meanwhile, the Wuhan Institute of Virology – in the city where the crisis began – claimed the drug was “very effective” in petri dish tests.

A report claims that officials in the Netherlands already suggest treating critically ill patients with the drug, and doctors in South Korea and China both say the drug is an “effective” antiviral treatment for the disease, according to a report by U.S. virologists.

The drug is inexpensive, safe and readily available to buy as a travel medicine in the UK without a prescription – a two-week supply costs just £ 3.22 from Boots.

Professor Robin May, an infectious disease expert at the University of Birmingham, said, ‘Chloroquine is a drug that has a long history of use against malaria, mainly because it diffuses into red blood cells, making the environment in the cell less suitable for parasites to to live in.

Since it has a long history of clinical use, the safety profile of chloroquine is well established and inexpensive and relatively easy to manufacture, so – theoretically – it would be quite easy to accelerate to clinical trials and, if successful, eventually in treatment. ‘

Twenty-three clinical trials of the drug are already underway in patients in China, and one is planned in the US and another in South Korea.

University of Minnesota experts plan to test whether the drug – sometimes given to treat lupus and arthritis – prevents the progression of COVID-19.

A number of other existing medications are also going into clinical trials to see if they can stop the coronavirus.

A combination of HIV medications called lopinavir / ritonavir has also not been exported by the MHRA.

This drug, marketed under the brand names Kaletra and Aluvia, can essentially cling to an enzyme on a virus that is vital for the reproduction of the virus.

Doing so blocks the process that the virus would normally use to clone itself and spread the infection further.

In a clinical trial application filed in the US from the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, scientists said, “In vitro [laboratory] studies have shown that lopinavir / ritonavir [has] antiviral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). ‘

Chinese media reported that the drug was used successfully to cure patients with the coronavirus, but the reports have not been scientifically proven.

Other drugs that have claimed but not proven benefits for coronavirus patients include flu medication favipiravir; remdesivir, a drug made to try to beat ebola; and sarilumab, which calms the immune system in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

The successful discovery of a treatment or vaccine for the coronavirus could be what countries need to return to normal life.

It comes after hopes of a cure for the coronavirus were awakened after an infected Italian man in his seventies recovered using an experimental Ebola drug.

Doctors gave the unidentified 79-year-old brake desivir, which researchers around the world tested in their desperate struggle to find a cure.

Officials in Liguria – the coastal area where the patient lives, south of Milan – announced that he had recovered and was able to go home after 12 days of hospitalization.

The drug also showed success in a critically ill woman in the U.S. and 14 Americans who tested positive for the coronavirus after catching it on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The Italian man who received remdesivir was hospitalized with the coronavirus on March 7, according to the local newspaper Genova today.

Doctors at the San Martino Hospital in Genoa, where he was being treated, have decided to give him the drug.

Professor Matteo Bassetti, director of the hospital’s infectious disease clinic, said that remdesivir “seems to work.”

In a joint press conference with the President of Liguria, they announced that the man would be allowed to go home because he no longer has the virus.

Professor Bassetti also revealed that other patients in the region had received remdesivir, local journalists reported.

The promising antiviral drug works by neutralizing a vital enzyme that viruses use to reproduce. It is called an RNA polymerase inhibitor.

It was developed 10 years ago by the California-based drug company Gilead Sciences with the intention of destroying the Ebola virus.

It effectively treated monkeys infected with Ebola, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But it was unsuccessful in humans.

The latest controversy follows on from failing to monitor frontline NHS employees, with testing for coronavirus increasing to 25,000 a day.

Ministers have been severely criticized for imposing a restriction on March 12, meaning no one could have a test unless they are already seriously ill in the hospital.

Even front-line NHS workers have been unable to get tested – despite the country handling 5,000 tests a day. The World Health Organization has called on all countries to “test, test, test.”

Doctors and scientists say it is impossible to track and model the number of cases without confirming whether people are infected.

The quarrel was further fueled by the fact that private health clinics offer tests for as much as £ 375 at a time to those wealthy enough to afford them.

Under pressure yesterday, Boris Johnson confirmed an escalation of test capacity to 10,000 a day by next week and 25,000 a day within four weeks.

He said testing health workers would be a “priority,” but insiders admitted that it would only happen if capacity is significantly increased.

Officials hope that routine testing of health workers will become possible in the coming weeks, but until then seriously ill patients will occupy the full capacity of the country.

Flu, antimalaria, arthritis and HIV medications: the promising therapies tested on coronavirus patients worldwide

Chloroquine phosphate (Malaria)

A drug used by doctors who fight the coronavirus outbreak is chloroquinephosphate, an antimalarial drug.

The drug – sold under the brand name Arlan – kills malaria parasites in the blood and stops tropical disease in its tracks.

But tests of the drug – which has been used for 70 years – in COVID-19 patients in China show that it has potential to fight the life-threatening virus.

Chinese officials claimed the drug was “proven to be effective and acceptably safe in the treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia.”

Experts from the University of Palermo in Italy and a team in Israel have collected the study of the drug in the treatment of the coronavirus.

In their report, they claimed that officials in the Netherlands already suggest treating critically ill patients with the drug.

According to South Korea and China, the drug is an “effective” antiviral treatment for the disease, according to a report by U.S. virologists.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology – in the city where the crisis began – claimed the drug was “very effective” in petri dish testing.

Tests by those researchers, as well as others, showed that it has the power to stop the virus from replicating in cells and holding the body.

Twenty-three clinical trials of the drug are already underway in patients in China, and one is planned in the US and another in South Korea.

University of Minnesota experts plan to test whether the drug – sometimes given to treat lupus and arthritis – prevents the progression of COVID-19.

Chloroquine was prescribed about 46,000 times in the UK in 2018, but it is also available at pharmacies without a prescription.

Professor Robin May, infectious disease specialist at Birmingham University, said the drug’s safety profile is “well established.”

He added, “It is inexpensive and relatively easy to manufacture, so it would be quite easy to accelerate to clinical trials and, if successful, eventually to treatment.”

Professor May suggested that chloroquine may work by changing the acidity of the cell area it attacks, making it more difficult for the virus to replicate.

Hydroxychloroquine (Malaria)

Chinese scientists investigating the other form of chloroquine wrote a letter to a prestigious journal stating that its ‘less toxic’ derivative could also help.

In the comment to Cell Discovery – owned by Nature publishing house, they said it shares similar chemical structures and mechanisms.

The team of experts added, “It is easy to evoke the idea that hydroxychloroquine may be a powerful candidate to treat infection by SARS-CoV-2.”

But the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology admitted they still have no evidence to prove it is as effective as chloroquinephosphate.

Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil, causes side effects such as rash, nausea, diarrhea and headache.

Drug giant Sanofi conducted a study in 24 patients, which the French government called “promising.”

The results showed that three-quarters of patients treated with the drug had the virus cleared within six days. None of the placebo groups were treated.

French health officials are now planning a larger trial of the drug, which is used on the NHS to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and malaria.

Lopinavir / ritonavir (HIV)

Lopinavir / ritonavir, marketed as Kaletra and Aluvia, is an HIV medicine given to people living with the virus to prevent it from developing into AIDS.

The drug has shown promise as a way to tackle the coronavirus, scientists say, because it can bind to the outside of the coronavirus.

It is a class of medicines called a protease inhibitor that essentially clings to an enzyme on a virus that is vital for the reproduction of the virus. Doing so blocks the process that the virus would normally use to clone itself and spread the infection further.

In a clinical trial application filed in the US from the Asan Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, scientists said, “In vitro [laboratory] studies have shown that lopinavir / ritonavir [has] antiviral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). ‘

Chinese media reported that the drug was used successfully to cure patients with the coronavirus, but the reports have not been scientifically proven.

US-based manufacturer AbbVie has donated free supplies of Kaletra to health authorities in China, the US and Europe – it’s not clear if the UK is included.

The drug is available on the NHS and was prescribed about 1,400 times in 2018, either as Kaletra or as ritonavir alone.

Favipiravir (flu)

Favipiravir is the active ingredient in Avigan, a flu drug sold in Japan.

Doctors in China claimed that it was “clearly effective” in patients with the coronavirus after giving it to 80 people in the cities of Wuhan and Shenzen.

They said it accelerated patient recovery, reduced lung damage, and did not cause obvious side effects. It is also used to treat yellow fever and foot-and-mouth disease.

According to local media, patients who received the drug in Shenzhen had negative coronavirus results on average four days after diagnosis.

This compared to 11 days for those not treated with the drug. It is not clear what the results of the tests were in Wuhan, the worst affected part of China.

The drug is an antiviral drug that neutralizes a vital enzyme that viruses use to reproduce. It is called an RNA polymerase inhibitor.

It is not used by the NHS. It is produced by the Japanese company Fujifilm Toyama Chemical.

Remdesivir (Ebola)

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug that works in much the same way as favipiravir – by paralyzing the RNA polymerase enzyme and preventing a virus from reproducing.

It was developed about 10 years ago by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences with the intention of destroying the Ebola virus. However, it was pushed aside when other better candidates came forward.

But it remained an antiviral drug that could destroy various viruses in lab tests, scientists said. Doctors in the US tried three hospitalized coronavirus patients, but the results were mixed.

The drug is now being tested on coronavirus patients in China and at the University of Nebraska, CNN reports.

Doctors write in a study led by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature said last month: “Our findings show that remdesivir [is] very effective in fighting 2019 nCoV infection in vitro. ‘

They added that since the drug has been proven to be safe in humans, it “should be assessed in human patients suffering from the new coronavirus disease.”

Remdesivir is not prescribed on the NHS.

Sarilumab (rheumatoid arthritis)

Sarilumab, a rheumatoid arthritis drug marketed as Kevzara and available for prescription on the NHS, will be tested in patients in the U.S.

Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and Regeneron plan to give the medication to people with the coronavirus to see if it can help calm their immune response.

The drug works by blocking part of the immune system that can cause inflammation or swelling, which is overactive in people with rheumatoid arthritis.

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to infection, but in patients with coronavirus, it can get out of hand, significantly worsening symptoms and even causing multiple organ failure.

Regeneron, who makes the drug, said Chinese doctors say it worked for their patients, the Financial Times reported. He said the drug could provide “temporary support” by reducing the severity of patients’ symptoms to help hospitals cope.

John Reed, of Sanofi, told the FT: “We expect to start trials soon outside the US, including areas most affected by the pandemic, such as Italy, in the coming weeks.”