There aren't as many as for bacteria, for a number of reasons including that viruses don't really clearly fall into "alive" or "dead" in the same way. They hijack your cellular machinery to produce more of themselves but they're not much more than a strand of genetic code wrapped in a bundle. It's hard to say they're more alive than any computer virus.
However, we've studied the way in which viruses do this hijacking and are able to disrupt the process, for instance by blocking their mechanism of entering cells, by blocking their mechanism of exiting cells or by disrupting their ability to replicate their genetic information.
There are even some (albeit new) broad-spectrum antiviral medications such as Remdesivir which was explored in COVID-19. It does work, well even, though as the COVID-19 infection is primarily in the lungs it's difficult to establish a sufficient concentration to be hugely effective.
Hydroxycholorquine is interesting [1] both as an anti-inflammatory and immune modulator. The Azithromycin probably does nothing against nCoV-2 but may well help control secondary infection.
>Hydroxycholorquine is interesting [1] both as an anti-inflammatory and immune modulator. The Azithromycin probably does nothing against nCoV-2 but may well help control secondary infection.
I had no clarity as to why azithromycin had improved the outcomes in that study to 100% of those treated with it, when HCQ didn't. That's very interesting.
Maybe you could clarify something else for me. Is there any information about whether these two drugs together could function as a prophylactic, or is this something patients have to be administered at the beginning of symptoms, or is this something that can be done late in the course of the disease?
I was speculating about the role of Azithromycin though it appears another peer post mentioned something similar. The study was only 28 patients, open-label, non-randomized, 6 of which were asymptomatic. I think it's too early to say one way or the other, the N is really small on the study.
It could easily have been that some patients in the study developed bacterial pneumonia secondary to their COVID-19 and the azithromycin treated it. Much too early to say.
> Maybe you could clarify something else for me. Is there any information about whether these two drugs together could function as a prophylactic, or is this something patients have to be administered at the beginning of symptoms, or is this something that can be done late in the course of the disease?
Wish I knew, seems to be something we'll hear more about in the near term given the interest in studying it. From what I read it works best in early stages of disease and not as well later on. While not side-effect free, they're pretty highly targeted.
There aren't as many as for bacteria, for a number of reasons including that viruses don't really clearly fall into "alive" or "dead" in the same way. They hijack your cellular machinery to produce more of themselves but they're not much more than a strand of genetic code wrapped in a bundle. It's hard to say they're more alive than any computer virus.
However, we've studied the way in which viruses do this hijacking and are able to disrupt the process, for instance by blocking their mechanism of entering cells, by blocking their mechanism of exiting cells or by disrupting their ability to replicate their genetic information.
There are even some (albeit new) broad-spectrum antiviral medications such as Remdesivir which was explored in COVID-19. It does work, well even, though as the COVID-19 infection is primarily in the lungs it's difficult to establish a sufficient concentration to be hugely effective.
Hydroxycholorquine is interesting [1] both as an anti-inflammatory and immune modulator. The Azithromycin probably does nothing against nCoV-2 but may well help control secondary infection.
[1] https://watermark.silverchair.com/ciaa237.pdf?token=AQECAHi2...