COVID treatments – where are we?

Dr Linda Calabresi

writer

Dr Linda Calabresi

GP; Medical Editor, Healthed

Dr Linda Calabresi

There appears to be a myriad of potential treatments for our current health threat – COVID19. But just how real are these options? And which if any of these are likely to make it into our treatment regimens? A review just published online in JAMA gives us a neat summary of where we are up to in terms of treatment.

Firstly, it needs to be understood that ‘no proven effective therapies currently exist’, the review authors state. But despite this depressing reality, the upside is we already know a significant amount of detail about this novel coronavirus and its lifecycle in host cells, which provides scientists many potential targets for treatments. We also have the opportunity to review agents used in the past to treat SARS and MERS, which are similar viruses to COVID-19.

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References

JAMA published online April 13,2020. Doi 10:1001/jama2020.6019

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Dr Linda Calabresi

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Dr Linda Calabresi

GP; Medical Editor, Healthed

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