Covid-19: a drug against the corona virus?
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose.Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.A drug that has already been approved could also work against the novel coronavirus. It is supposed to prevent the pathogen from entering the lung cells.
Infection researchers from Göttingen, together with colleagues from the Berlin Charité Berlin, have examined how the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 penetrates cells. They identified an enzyme that enables viruses to penetrate lung cells: the protease TMPRSS2.
Known drug could protect
“We have thus found a starting point for combating the virus,” says Prof. Stefan Pöhlmann, head of the Infection Biology department at the German Primate Center. The highlight: there is already a drug that inhibits this protease. Its name: Camostat Mesilate. This is a drug approved in Japan that is used, among other things, against inflammation of the pancreas.
Blocked way into the lung cells
In a next step, the researchers examined whether the active ingredient can also prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. "We tested SARS-CoV-2 from a patient and found that Camostat Mesilate blocks the virus from penetrating lung cells," says Markus Hoffmann, the first author of the study.
"Our results suggest that Camostat Mesilate could also protect against the disease COVID-19," says Dr. Markus Hoffmann, the first author of the study. "This should be investigated in clinical studies."
Neither drugs nor vaccinations against SARS-CoV-2
The SARS coronavirus-2 has been spreading worldwide from China since December 2019. It is closely related to the SARS coronavirus that triggered the SARS pandemic in 2002/2003. Neither vaccines nor drugs are currently available to combat both types of viruses.
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