Licensed drug could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection by up to 70 per cent, reveals study - A promising new treatment for COVID-19 infection

A licensed drug normally used to treat abnormal levels of fatty substances in the blood could reduce infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus by up to 70 percent, reveals a study in the laboratory by an international collaboration of researchers. Fenofibrate, which is approved for use by most countries in the world including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is an oral drug currently used to treat conditions such as high levels of cholesterol and lipids (fatty substances) in the blood.

In this study, to identify candidates that disrupt ACE2 and Spike interactions. Having identified fenofibrate as a candidate, they then tested the efficacy of the drug in reducing infection in cells in the laboratory using the original strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated in 2020. They found fenofibrate reduced infection by up to 70%. Additional unpublished data also indicates that fenofibrate is equally effective against the newer variants of SARS-CoV-2 including the alpha and beta variants and research is ongoing into its efficacy in the delta variant.

The research team, led by the University of Birmingham and Keele University in the UK and the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Italy, has demonstrated that fenofibrate and its active form (fenofibric acid) can significantly reduce SARS-COV-2 infection in human cells in the laboratory. Importantly, reduction of infection was obtained using concentrations of the drug which are safe and achievable using the standard clinical dose of fenofibrate. The team is now calling for clinical trials to test the drug in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, to be carried out in addition to two clinical trials also currently underway in such patients in research being led by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in the US and Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

The research, published in Frontiers in Pharmacology, was also carried out in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Liverpool in the UK.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-drug-sars-cov-infection-cent-reveals.html

A flowering plant native to North Africa and Western Asia could be utilized in the future treatment of COVID-19 infection.The seeds of the plant, Nigella sativa, have been used for centuries as a traditional remedy for multiple medical conditions, including inflammation and infections. Now, an Australian-first research review article has found it could be used to treat COVID-19.Thymoquinone has been extensively studied in laboratories, including animal studies. These studies have shown that thymoquinone can moderate our immune system in a good way, by preventing pro-inflammation chemicals such as interleukins from been released. This gives thymoquinone a potential role as a treatment for allergic conditions such as asthma, eczema, arthritis conditions including rheumatoid and osteoarthritis and even possibly multiple sclerosis.

The review paper details the mechanisms of action of Nigella sativa and thymoquinone and how they are a promising future treatment of COVID-19 infection. There have been many barriers to the development of Nigella sativa as a therapeutic agent in large part due to its poor natural gastrointestinal absorption.Nigella sativa has been shown to be helpful in treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes mellitus. As an anti-inflammatory treatment, Nigella sativa has also been found to help patients with allergic rhinitis and sinusitis, eczema, osteoarthritis and childhood epilepsy. Nigella sativa has also been proven to be effective in a laboratory environment in killing bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus that can cause a range of mild to severe infections if they enter the skin, and viruses including influenza.

The study, "The role of thymoquinone, a major constituent of Nigella sativa, in the treatment of inflammatory and infectious diseases," was recently published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-treatment-covid-infection.html

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