Early Covid treatments can be a “bridge” for vaccines, Fauci says

“We are now very focused on treating and preventing early infections,” Fauci said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday. “And that’s the bridge to the vaccine.”

Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 could begin in the United States in November or December, according to Forsi, but to protect enough Americans from the pandemic virus and significantly reduce the threat. It is expected to take at least the third quarter of 2021. Forch said 100 million doses of the vaccine could be produced by December, and all six companies supplying the United States will produce 700 million doses by April next year.

Professor Robert Chips Schoolie of San Diego, California, said that vaccines to prevent Covid-19 have not yet been proven and that new treatments and measures need to continue to be promoted to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. I will. We are researching more powerful versions of existing antiviral drugs.

“Ideally, there should be an oral antiviral drug that can be given to more people in the early stages of the disease,” Schooley said. Vaccines may not be 100% effective. “It’s better than nothing, but I’ll have to rely on drugs and behavior modification for a long time to come.”

A Blockbuster study published Thursday by Science shows that about 14% of important Covid-19 patients have reduced levels of a substance called interferon that helps regulate the body’s defenses against viral pathogens. I did.

Read more: Covid’s doctor finds a turning point in life-threatening cases

This finding opens up new strategies for identifying high-risk patients and treating them with interferon infusions, or in some cases, removing interferon-blocking antibodies from the blood through a procedure called plasmapheresis.

According to Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, interferon has already been studied in dozens of clinical trials, showing the effectiveness of antiviral drugs when given early in infection. There is a possibility of improvement. I have been studying coronavirus for 38 years.

According to Thomas File, an infectious disease doctor and responsible person for infectious diseases in Akron, Ohio, infusion of coronavirus neutralizing antibodies reduces the amount of virus in patients in the early stages of infection and in most life-threatening cases. It may prevent the underlying immune overreaction. American Disease Association.

Fouch said monoclonal antibodies, which are clones of antibodies taken from the blood of patients recovered from Covid-19, could also be given to high-risk patients in geriatric homes. Ely Lilly & Co.’s antibody, LY-CoV555, showed some promising signs in outpatient trials, the company said on September 16.

In an online briefing for Massachusetts General Hospital staff, Forch said on September 10 that he was “cautiously optimistic that monoclonal antibodies could be an important treatment for early-stage disease.” It was. “We need something to keep people out of the hospital.”

Steroids similar to devisametazone can be harmful too early in the course of Covid-19’s disease, said Shane Crotty, a professor at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Research at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, California. I am.

“Steroids have certainly proven to be valuable to people who are very ill, but they are tricky drugs,” Crotty said in an interview. Drug therapy prevents parts of the immune system from “confusing” and causing inflammation, and prevents parts of the immune system from producing antibodies against the infection.

This issue highlights the need for treatments to fight the virus while supporting the immune system, and the need for a regimen that can be mixed and adapted according to the body’s success in combating infection, Minnesota said. University.

“This is part of the virus’s dance,” Osterholm said. “You are doing your best to strengthen it, and accept the worst host and try to suppress it.”