Boris Johnson reveals plans to treat Covid with new drugs at home by autumn – to combat third wave and new variants.
The British Prime Minister told a Downing Street news conference the pills would help to “continue on our path towards freedom”.
A new Government group has been tasked with finding such a drug in a “supercharged search” ahead of an expected third outbreak.
Called the Antivirals Taskforce, it will search for the most promising antiviral medicines that can be taken at home and push for them to be rapidly trialled.
It will also look at opportunities to ramp up UK production of the drugs.
The aim is to have at least two effective treatments this year, either in a tablet or capsule form much like antibiotics or ibuprofen.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the intention is for the drugs to “stop Covid-19 in its tracks” to avoid severe disease.
Antivirals work to stop the virus from replicating inside the body.
“This means for example that if you test positive for the virus that there might be a tablet you could take at home to stop the virus in its tracks and significantly reduce the chance of infection turning into more serious disease,” Mr Johnson told the briefing.
Pfizer Inc. confirmed that it has started human safety testing for medication that could potentially treat coronavirus when symptoms first arrive.
The company claims that the newly found medicine, if prescribed early on, could block viral replication before patients develop severe symptoms.
“The drug binds to an enzyme called a protease to keep the virus from replicating. Protease-inhibiting medicines have been successful in treating other types of viruses, including HIV and Hepatitis C,” Bloomberg reported.
The first human trials are being conducted in the United States and details are expected to be announced soon.
