Scientists fast track search for treatments

MELBOURNE researchers will trial a drug used to treat the auto-immune disease lupus to see if it can prevent COVID-19 in health workers.

It comes as an extra 1.5 million face masks and 63,000 COVID-19 test kits have arrived in Australia with millions more on order as state and federal governments gear up for the worsening outbreak.

And the government has ordered 1.5 million fingerprick tests for COVID19 that could be used at airports and GP clinics to quickly identify people with the virus.

Meanwhile, US researchers have identified 69 existing or experimental medications including drugs used for schizophrenia, Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease they believe might help treat the virus.

The scientists reported in a paper published on the web site bioRxiv they had cloned and tagged 26 of coronavirus’s 29 genes. This allowed them to identify 66 human proteins that could be targeted by 69 existing FDA-approved drugs, drugs in clinical trials and/or pre-clinical compounds that they are now evaluating for treating COVID-19.

On the list of potential treatments are the drug haloperidol, used to treat schizophrenia, and metformin, taken by people with Type 2 diabetes.

The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which has emerged as a promising treatment is on the list as well as a Parkinson’s disease treatment.

It comes as health practitioners warned people racing to stockpile hydroxychloroquine it can have serious side effects affecting the stomach, vision and in some cases death.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia has told chemists not to dispense the drug to people scared of COVID-19 after doctors and dentists began writing scripts for the drug.