According to the study, coronavirus patients treated with an experimental hepatitis drug are FOUR times more likely to remove the infection.
- Peginterferon-lambda is a man-made form of a natural protein that triggers immune cells to attack a virus and is mainly used to treat hepatitis.
- Receptors for the drug are found in the linings of the lungs and intestines – the main areas where COVID-19 attacks – and the liver
- Researchers gave half of a group of 60 coronavirus patients one injection of the drug and the other half a placebo
- Patients administered the drug were four times more likely to be undetectable on the seven-day period than the placebo group
- Among the 60 patients, five went to emergency rooms, four of them in the placebo group and one in the treatment group.
COVID-19 patients treated with an experimental hepatitis drug were able to clear the virus faster, according to a new study.
Those with mild symptoms received peginterferon-lambda, which is a man-made form of a natural protein that helps control respiratory diseases by calling the immune system to the site of infection.
Researchers found that patients who received one injection of the drug were four times more likely to detect viral loads within seven days compared to a group treated with placebo.
The team from the Toronto Center for Liver Disease, University Health Network, says the findings provide evidence that the drug could help spread the virus while the vaccine is being rolled out.
Researchers gave half of a group of 60 patients with a coronavirus one injection of an experimental hepatitis drug and the other half a placebo. The patients who were given the drug on day seven were four times more likely to be undetectable than the placebo group (above)
Peginterferon-lambda is a man-made form of a natural protein that triggers immune cells to attack a virus and is mainly used to treat hepatitis (above)
“This treatment has great therapeutic potential, especially at the moment, as we are seeing aggressive variants of the virus spreading around the world that are less sensitive to both vaccines and antibody treatment,” says Dr. Jordan Feld, a liver specialist at the Toronto Center for Liver Disease.
Peginterferon lambda has in the past been described as a call in the troops’ command to ward off immune cell diseases.
Receptors for the drug are found in the linings of the lungs and intestines – the main areas where COVID-19 attacks – and the liver.
Most experimental treatments are being studied in hospital patients, but researchers want to see if peginterferon-lambda can help avoid hospitalization.
For the study, published in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, the team looked at 60 outpatients COVID-19, those who did not require hospitalization in six centers between May 2020 and November 2020.
Half of the patients were randomly assigned to receive either one injection of peginterferon-lambda or a placebo within seven days after the onset of the symptom, or within seven days after the first positive swab if it was asymptomatic.
One week after injection, 80 percent of participants in the peginterferon-lambda group had undetectable viral loads, compared with 63 percent in the placebo group.
After checking for basal viral load, the patient administering the drug was four times more likely to have undetectable loads at seven days than the control group.
The treatment was even clearer in participants with higher viral levels, more than one million copies per milliliter.
Fifteen of the 19 patients in the peginterferon lambda group with these high levels had seven undetectable charges on day one compared with six of 16 in the placebo group.
“People who were treated quickly eliminated the virus and the effect was most pronounced in those with the highest virus levels,” said Dr. Feld said.
‘We also saw a trend towards faster improvement of respiratory symptoms in the treatment group.
Among the 60 patients, five went to emergency rooms, four of them in the placebo group and one in the treatment group.
Feld said the drug helps to lower virus levels rapidly, preventing people from getting worse or spreading the disease to others.
“If we can lower the virus level quickly, people are less likely to spread the infection to others and we can even shorten the time required for self-isolation,” he said.