‘Even with vaccines on the way, treatments are needed to prevent the disease from getting worse—and to be ready for COVID-25, COVID-37, and so on...
‘In an interview with Scientific American, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described the desired characteristics of early COVID treatments. “My overwhelming preference is for direct-acting antiviral agents that can be administered orally” and that suppress the virus completely within a week or less, he said. “That, to me, is the highest priority.”
‘Scientists have begun on differing paths to search for these drugs... One of the current leading contenders for treating mild COVID is an antiviral pill that was previously developed for influenza. At first called EIDD-2801, the drug was found to protect mice from severe lung disease caused by two other coronaviruses—SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV...
‘Repurposing existing drugs can also yield some surprises by finding ones that are not logical candidates to work against COVID-19. Fluvoxamine, a pill used for treating anxiety disorders, shows some promise in treating early COVID...’
Read here (Scientific American, Dec 14, 2020)
