COVID-19 treatments for better protection against future variants identified

London: Researchers have identified new therapies for COVID-19 that they say could provide better protection against future variants and outbreaks.

An international team led by researchers from the University of Kent in the UK and the Goethe-University in Germany tested the sensitivity of different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta viruses to combinations of the four currently approved antiviral drugs with betaferon.

Betaferon is a class of antiviral drug that is also naturally produced in the body and protect it from virus infections.

The recent COVID-19 waves have caused fewer hospitalisations and deaths than the initial ones -- largely due to the immunity provided by vaccines, the researchers said.

However, many people have defects in their immune systems and cannot effectively protect themselves from COVID-19 by vaccination and rely on effective antiviral therapies, they said.

The researchers noted that threat of resistance formation for antiviral drugs, which can happen quickly and cause problems with treatment, also adds to the need for new treatments for future-proofing our protection against COVID-19.

The study, published in the Journal of Infection, found new combination therapies that are highly effective in cell culture experiments and that may reduce the formation of novel variants.

"These are exciting findings that will hopefully help to improve the treatment of vulnerable COVID-19 patients and to avoid the formation of resistant viruses as much as possible," said Professor Martin Michaelis, from the University of Kent.

Currently, there are three approved antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-19: remdesivir, molnupiravir, and nirmatrelvir -- the active agent in paxlovid.

Moreover, aprotinin is an approved drug, whose anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity was discovered by the same research team, and it was recently shown to be beneficial in COVID-19 patients.

The findings show that interferon combination with molnupiravir, nirmatrelvir, and aprotinin were much more effective than interferon combinations with remdesivir.

This may explain, why remdesivir/interferon combinations have so far shown limited improvement compared to remdesivir alone, according to the researchers. Interferon combinations with the other three drugs should be tested in the clinics, they said.

"If these findings are confirmed in patients, I hope that more effective therapies will help us to reduce the formation of novel dangerous COVID-19 variants," said Professor Jindrich Cinatl from Goethe-University.