Antiviral drug cocktail reduces MERS virus in monkeys according to study

With the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) still growing, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are reporting some promising results from using a drug cocktail of two common, licensed antiviral drugs at reducing viral replication in MERS infected monkeys, according to a study published today in Nature Medicine. According to the research, scientists infected six rhesus macaques with MERS-CoV and, eight hours later, treated half of them with the two-drug regimen of ribavirin and interferon (IFN-α2b). Compared to the untreated animals, the treatment group showed no breathing difficulties and only minimal X-ray evidence of pneumonia. The treated animals also had lower amounts of virus and less severe tissue damage in the lungs. The New York Times reports that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the study “not a game changer, but an...