Plan to trial low-risk treatment

A drugs company has come up with ‘low risk, low cost’ medicine to treat deadly bacterial lung infections associated with Coronavirus.

Novabiotics, based in Aberdeen, announced it could be testing one of its drugs, Nylexa, on Covid-19 patients by the second half of the year and could provide a rescue remedy long before any vaccine can be developed.

Experts say one of the main ways to combat the coronavirus will be by repurposing existing drugs, as a vaccine is likely to take a long time to develop. The active ingredient in Nylexa has been already proven safe for use in complex lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis.

Novabiotics believes the medicine could be used to treat severe bacterial lung infections, which proved fatal in the majority of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 in China and other countries where there is a high amount of antibiotic usage, and antibiotic resistance.

Although the drug does not fight the coronavirus itself, it could be used against bacterial infection which is common in those who have Covid-19.

Due to patients’ low immune systems, these infections can quickly become life-threatening with regular antibiotics having little effect.

In Hubei Province, China, where the pandemic started, bacterial lung infections or sepsis were the cause of death in more than 50 per cent of Covid-19 patients in hospital.

Deborah O’neil, CEO of Novabiotics, said: “The impact of bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance in Covid-19 is beyond doubt, and whilst vaccine development continues for the longer term, it is critical to develop rapidly deployable strategies to prevent deaths and long-term health issues from secondary bacterial infections caused by Sars-cov-2.

“These infections could still be fatal regardless of antiviral or other treatment.”