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Hong Kong scientists have discovered a drugs
cocktail
that they believe may quadruple the survival rate of people infected
with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.
In a groundbreaking study, the 13-member team from Hong Kong University
gave H5N1-infected mice a mixture of three drugs.
The drugs suppressed the deadly virus, boosted survival rates and
reduced the often fatal overreaction of the immune system. Now, the
scientists say, the cocktail should be tested on humans. Detailing
their discovery in an American medical journal, the team said it used a
combination of the antiviral drug zanamivir
(Relenza) and the non- steroid anti-flammatory agents celecoxib
(Celebrex) and mesalamine
(Asacol).
The infected mice that were given the cocktail showed a survival rate
of 53.3 percent and a survival time of 13.3 days much higher than using
zanamivir alone (13.3 percent, 8.4 days), or none at all (0 percent,
6.6 days).
The degree of damage to the lungs and general inflammation were also
much less severe when compared with those mice fed courses of zanamivir
alone. The researchers also said the drugs cocktail can control the
cytokine storm that occurs when patients immune systems overreact,
often leading to death.
Zanamivir alone reduces viral load but not inflammation and mortality,
they wrote.
[Celecoxib and mesalazine] suppress the cytokine storm without
suppressing the good protective response, which steroids do. Steroids
suppress everything, said the universitys leading micobiologist Yuen
Kwok-yung. Yuen added that the cocktail should be trialed on humans. We
should consider doing clinical trials with these three drugs, he said.
"The drugs may work with humans and theoretically you can decrease the
mortality rate to 20 percent," Yuen added.
In the experiment, the mice were tested 48 hours after being infected
with lethal doses of H5N1. "In the past 10 years, no regimen has been
shown to work after 48 hours," Yuen explained. The study, led by
associate professor of microbiology Zheng Bojian, is published in this
month's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to the World Health Organization, of the hundreds of strains
of avian influenza, the H5N1 virus is of the greatest concern because
it has caused by far the most human cases and the most deaths, 241 to
date.
It has crossed the species barrier to infect humans on at least three
occasions in recent years - involving 18 cases with six deaths -
including the first documented case of human-to- human infection in
Hong Kong in 1997, two cases with one death in Hong Kong in 2003 and in
ongoing outbreaks that began in December 2003. Most of the human cases
have been linked to contact with infected birds
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