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Researchers have identified an antiviral drug that’s highly effective against the COVID-19 causing coronavirus, and may have significant implications in how future disease outbreaks are handled.
The team, including researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK, found that the plant-derived antiviral, in small doses, triggers an extremely effective broad-spectrum host-centred antiviral innate immune response against three major kinds of human respiratory ailments, such as COVID-19.
Given that acute respiratory virus infections caused by different viruses are clinically identical, an effective broad-spectrum that could target different virus types in the exact same time could significantly improve clinical management, the researchers said.
The important features based on cell and animal studies, which make thapsigargin a promising antiviral are it is effective against viral disease when used before or during active disease, the researchers said.
The drug is also able to prevent a virus from making new copies of itself for at least 48 hours after one 30-minute exposure, they said.
The researchers noted that thapsigargin is stable in acidic pH, as found in the stomach, and for that reason can be taken orally.
They said the drug could, therefore, be administered without the need for injections or hospital admission.
It is not sensitive to virus resistance, and is at least several hundred-fold more effective than current antiviral options, according to the study.
“Whilst we are still in the early stages of research into this antiviral and its impact on how viruses like COVID-19 could be treated, these findings are hugely important,” said Professor Kin-Chow Chang from the University of Nottingham.
“Given that future pandemics will probably be of animal origin, where animal to human (zoonotic) and inverse zoonotic (human to animal) spread take place, a new generation of antivirals, such as thapsigargin, could play an integral role in the control and treatment of important viral infections in both humans and animals,” Chang added.
