Five medicines in current trial may treat virus ‘straight away’

THE first treatment for coronavirus could be ready by next month, scientists have said, after trialling drugs, including HIV therapies and antimalarials, to see if they can reverse the disease.

More than 10,000 patients who have tested positive for coronavirus have been involved in the Recovery trial, which has been assessing whether five medications, already in use for other conditions, could help with Covid-19.

The first results are due in late June. If successful, researchers say they could be rolled out across the NHS immediately. All the drugs are all already licensed for other uses so do not need to go through regulation.

“Because of the types of drugs we’ve chosen, that should change practice very, very rapidly,” said Prof Martin Landray of Oxford University, the deputy chief investigator of the trial, at an online briefing. “Doctors will be free to prescribe those drugs. There should be essentially no delay. The drugs should be used straight away.”

The drugs being tested are lopinavirritonavir, a commonly used treatment for HIV; dexamethasone, a type of steroid that reduces inflammation; hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial championed by Donald Trump; the commonly used antibiotic azithromycin and tocilizumab, an anti-inflammatory treatment given by injection.

Prof Landray said thousands of lives could be saved if a drug could reduce fatalities even by one fifth, and that combination therapies may be needed.

“Reducing the risk of death by one fifth doesn’t sound like very much – it’s not a cure,” he said. “But if we found several drugs that each reduced the risk by one fifth then quickly we’d be reducing the risk of dying by say a half or more. There’s not likely to be any single one big winner, it’s much more likely that several drugs may have what we might think of as modest effects.”

Prof Peter Horby, leading the trial, warned that coronavirus was likely to become endemic and that drugs would be needed in the long term. “Even if we get an effective vaccine, I think it will be impossible to eradicate this virus,” he said. “It will be with us probably for ever. We want to reduce the numbers as much as you can through vaccination but for those who slipped through the net, you need an effective treatment.”