Half of the US Adult population are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 infections yet different variants keep coming up through mutation and they are resistant to the vaccine. We had the Delta Variant that emanated from Indian and the most recent one omnicron that emanated from Southern Africa.
There is a need for scientists to come up with a treatment that can be used to stop COVID-19. Good news!!! Scientists are very close to discovering an oral treatment for Covid-19.
Kill the Virus Ability From Replication with TEMPOL
Replication; is how most viruses are transmitted. What if there is a way COVID Virus can be prevented from replicating itself?
Researchers after examining a drug called TEMPOL found out that this drug can shut down a key enzyme that the SARS-CoV-2 virus needs to replicate itself. To further the studies, researchers needed to test if the drug can stop serious COVID infection in people.
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Dr. Tracey Kennedy Shriver
A research team at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) led by Dr. Tracey Rouault; in a result published on June 3, 2021, looked for new ways to target an enzyme produced by SARS-CoV-2 called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Finding a way to kill RdRp which is what the SARS-CoV-2 needs to replicate will stop the progression of the virus in the human body.
Fe-S Cluster
To stop the ability of the RdRp for replication, the team discovered that Fe-S Cluster Iron and Sulphur are present in it and these are what it relies on to function. So they eliminated the iron and Sulphur which impaired its ability to replicate.
The team needed to test if a drug can degrade the Fe-S cluster; TEMPOL has previously been tested for other uses in humans and does not seem to have side effects, so the team focused on TEMPOL. They found that TEMPOL inhibited the RdRp when tested in the human cell. They infected the cell with SARS-CoV-2 and administered TEMPOL; the virus was blocked from replicating by the drug.
Recent Drugs
Pharmaceutical companies have used discoveries similar to this research to come up with COVID-19 oral drugs.
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Merck’s molnupiravir Covid-19 drug was tested on 775 patients from their different trial sites around the world, these patients were grouped into 2. A group took the drug twice daily and another took Placebo twice daily for 5 days. Molnupiravir works by inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 from replicating its genetic material, which it needs to do to infect more cells.
Pfizer has also announced that its Covid-19 drug is ready the drug was tested on 2500 person and it reduced hospitalization and death by 89% among high-risk adults when taken shortly after the virus’s symptoms. Pfizer tested the drug against a man-made version of a key protein that the covid virus uses to replicate itself.
