据官员称，日本计划使用艾滋病毒药物来治疗带有致命新冠状病毒的人。
路透社称，内阁官房长官菅义伟在周二的一次简报会上表示，政府“目前正在进行准备工作，以便尽快开始使用艾滋病药物治疗新型冠状病毒的临床试验”据报告的。抗逆转录病毒药物通过阻止病毒在体内复制来对抗艾滋病毒。
菅义伟表示，他无法就该药物获得批准所需的时间发表评论。
经济学家说，冠状病毒“威胁着全球化的未来”
日本是冠状病毒确诊病例第二多的国家，官方命名为COVID-19，仅次于中国大陆，为66例，另外还有454例钻石公主游轮。这艘船目前停靠和隔离在东京以南的横滨海岸，一名乘客被诊断患有COVID-19。除了台湾、菲律宾、香港和法国，它也是在中国大陆以外发生死亡的五个国家和地区之一。到目前为止，1873人死亡在73335例确诊病例中，大部分发生在中国中部的湖北省，该病毒被认为是在2019年末从一个海产品批发市场出现的。如信息图表所示Statista下面，它已经蔓延到超过25个国家和地区，包括美国
一张信息图显示了COVID-19病例在世界各地的确诊情况。
由于病毒是如此新没有特定的药物旨在预防或治疗它。相反，那些生病的人必须控制他们的症状——包括发烧、干咳和气短在他们试图康复时得到支持，在某些情况下需要住院治疗。
据法新社报道，本月早些时候，泰国卫生部表示，医生使用了流感药物和艾滋病抗病毒药物的组合来帮助治疗一名患者据报告的。然而，克瑞格萨克·阿提拉万尼奇博士在新闻发布会上宣布，卫生部正在等待结果，以证明药物对这位71岁的妇女有所帮助。根据科学杂志的新闻报道 自然目前，中国有80多项针对COVID-19的药物临床试验正在进行或即将进行。自1月中旬以来，中国的医护人员还尝试给COVID-19患者服用抗艾滋病药物洛匹那韦和利托那韦，以及治疗流感的药物，卫报 据报告的。
英国牛津布鲁克斯大学进化基因组学高级讲师拉温德·坎达告诉记者新闻周刊正在试验的药物通过阻断病毒需要复制的酶来发挥作用。在涉及实验室动物的研究中，发现它们能降低导致严重急性呼吸综合征和呼吸窘迫综合征的冠状病毒水平，这两种疾病与COVID-19同属一个病毒家族。
坎达解释说，艾滋病毒、流感和COVID-19在某些方面是相似的，因为它们是众所周知的核糖核酸病毒。核糖核酸是指病毒携带的遗传物质。她说，这些药物通过“靶向病毒核糖核酸复制来发挥作用，所以如果病毒不能复制，就不能传播”。
然而，英国利兹大学分子和细胞生物学学院的马克·哈里斯教授告诉我们新闻周刊尽管有一些基于实验室的证据表明抗艾滋病药物可能对冠状病毒有效，但它们“极不可能”作为一种有效的治疗方法发挥作用。
哈里斯解释说，尽管这些细菌都是核糖核酸病毒，但艾滋病毒、流感和COVID-19是“非常不同”的病毒类型，它们以不同的方式生长。
牛津大学新兴传染病和全球健康教授彼得·霍比是埃博拉药物的先驱，他告诉记者 卫报:“没有人真正知道。大多数进入试验的药物被证明无效。这是更常见的结果。一个人应该非常谨慎。”
当被问及对抗COVID-19的药物还需要多长时间时，哈里斯说:“如果目前在试验中被批准的化合物中有一种效果良好，那么唯一的限制将是我们能多快充分利用它。否则，开发新的化合物需要几个月到几年的时间。”他说，目前正在病人身上进行试验的药物remdesivir似乎很有希望。
哈里斯补充说，与几周前相比，他对COVID-10“不那么担心”。“我们在中国看到了蔓延，但在其他地方却很少，而且现有措施似乎正在奏效。显然，大多数患者病情轻微，恢复很快，”他说。
神田同意这是一个“好消息”，遏制措施似乎在中国之外奏效，新报告的病例数量似乎趋于稳定。
随着专家们竞相开发COVID-19的治疗方法，世界卫生组织(世卫组织)敦促公众不要求助于未经证实的可能弊大于利的疗法。例如，世卫组织警告反对服用维生素C，吸烟，喝传统的草药茶，戴多重口罩，或者用抗生素之类的药物进行自我治疗，这些药物不起作用，因为它们只能杀死细菌，而不能杀死病毒。
然而，围绕致命病毒的恐惧已经导致人们转向伪科学的替代疗法。中国东部浙江省的一名妇女吃了太多的大蒜，喉咙发炎到不能说话，她被送进了医院南华早报(SCMP)据报告的引用潜江晚报。这名女子名叫张，她在两周的时间里吃了大约16个灯泡，重约3.3磅。另一名妇女在向衣服喷洒酒精后，手和脸被严重烧伤，导致她点燃广州日报据报道SCMP。
上海中山医院的医院感染专家高晓东告诉记者SCMP“出于恐慌，人们尝试了各种方法来保护自己。但人们应该知道，这种新型冠状病毒比“非典”[严重急性呼吸综合征或“中东呼吸综合征”更具传染性，但没有它们致命。”
“旨在吸引公众注意力的网络谣言传递了错误的信息，也加剧了人们的恐慌，”他补充道。
世卫组织强调，保护自己免受COVID-19感染的最佳方法是遵循应始终遵守的基本卫生措施。这些方法包括经常用肥皂和水洗手，或者如果手没有明显的脏，用酒精摩擦来杀死病毒。
咳嗽和打喷嚏时，请将纸巾或手肘弯曲，并立即将纸巾扔进垃圾桶，清洁双手，以防止病菌传播和污染物体。
联合国机构还建议不要触摸眼睛、鼻子和嘴巴，以防止细菌进入身体。也要避免接触生病的动物或市场上的动物，变质的动物产品，以及它们的废物或液体。尽量不要吃生的或未煮熟的动物产品，在处理生肉、牛奶或动物器官时要小心。
这篇文章已经更新了马克·哈里斯教授和拉温德·坎达的评论。
2020年2月17日，人们在东京银座区等火车。——日本2月17日表示，将取消2月23日庆祝新任天皇德仁生日的公众集会，因为人们对新的COVID-19冠状病毒在日本蔓延的担忧日益加剧。
HOW IS CORONAVIRUS TREATED? JAPAN TO START HIV ANTIVIRAL DRUG TRIALS AS WHO WARNS ANTIBIOTICS AND ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS WON'T WORK
Japan plans to use HIV drugs in an attempt to treat people with the deadly new coronavirus, according to officials.
Yoshihide Suga, chief cabinet secretary, told a briefing on Tuesday that the government is "currently conducting preparations so that clinical trials using HIV medication on the novel coronavirus can start as soon as possible," Reuters reported. Antiretroviral drugs used against HIV work by stopping the virus from replicating in the body.
Suga said he could not comment on the length of time he thought it would take for the drug to be approved.
Japan has the second most confirmed cases of the coronavirus, officially named COVID-19, after mainland China, at 66—with a further 454 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The vessel is currently docked and quarantined off the coast of Yokohama, south of Tokyo, after a passenger was diagnosed with COVID-19. It is also among the five countries and territories to have had a fatality outside of mainland China, alongside Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and France. So far, 1,873 people have died of COVID-19 in 73,335 confirmed cases, mostly in the central Chinese province of Hubei where the virus is thought to have emerged from a wholesale seafood market in late 2019. As shown by the infographic by Statista below, it has spread to over 25 countries and territories, including the U.S.
An infographic showing where cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across the world.
As the virus is so new there are no specific medicines designed to prevent or treat it. Instead, those who fall ill must manage their symptoms—which include a fever, a dry cough and shortness of breath—and be supported while they try to recover, which in some cases involves hospitalization.
Earlier this month, Thailand's health ministry said doctors had used a combination of flu medications and HIV antiviral drugs to help treat a patient, the AFP news agency reported. However, Dr. Kriengsak Attipornwanich told the press briefing where the announcement was made that the ministry was awaiting results which would prove the drugs were what helped the 71-year-old woman. According to a news report by the scientific journal Nature, China has more than 80 clinical trials on drugs to attack COVID-19 running or pending. Since mid-January, healthcare workers in China have also tried giving HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, as well as medications for the flu, to COVID-19 patients, The Guardian reported.
Ravinder Kanda, senior lecturer in evolutionary genomics at Oxford Brookes University, U.K., told Newsweek the drugs being trialled work by blocking enzymes that viruses need to replicate. In studies involving animals in labs, they have been found to reduce levels of coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS, members of the same family of viruses as COVID-19.
HIV, the flu, and COVID-19 are similar in some ways because they are what are known as RNA viruses, Kanda explained. RNA refers to the genetic material the virus carries. The drugs work "by targeting viral RNA replication, so if the virus can't replicate, then it can't spread," she said.
However, professor Mark Harris of the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds, U.K., told Newsweek that while there is some laboratory-based evidence that anti-HIV medications might work against coronaviruses, it is "highly unlikely" they would work as an effective treatment.
Although the bugs are all RNA viruses, Harris explained HIV, the flu and COVID-19 are "very different" types of viruses, which grow in different ways.
Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health at Oxford University who pioneered on drugs for Ebola, told The Guardian: "Nobody honestly knows. Most drugs that go into trials prove to be not effective. It is the more common outcome. One should be very cautious."
Asked how long it will be before there is a drug against COVID-19, Harris said: "If one of the approved compounds in trials at present works well then the only limitation will be how quickly can we make enough of it. Otherwise to develop new compounds it will take months to years." The drug remdesivir which is currently being tested in patients appears to be promising, he said.
Harris added he is "less worried" about COVID-10 than he was a few weeks ago. "We have seen spread in China but very little elsewhere and the measures in place seem to be working. Clearly most patients have mild disease and recover quickly," he said.
Kanda agreed it was "good news" that containment measures seem to be working outside of China, and the numbers of newly reported cases seems to be levelling off.
As experts race to develop treatments for COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged members of the public not to turn to unproven remedies that could do more harm than good. For instance, the WHO warns against taking vitamin C, smoking, drinking traditional herbal teas, wearing multiple masks, or self-medicating with drugs like antibiotics which won't work as they only kill bacteria, not viruses.
Nevertheless, the fear surrounding the deadly virus has led people to turn to pseudoscientific alternative treatments. One woman in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang ate so much garlic she was hospitalized after her throat became inflamed to the point she could no longer speak, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported citing the Qianjiang Evening News. The woman identified only as Zhang consumed around 16 bulbs weighing approximately 3.3lbs over a period of two weeks. Another woman suffered severe burns to her hands and face after she sprayed her clothes with rubbing alcohol, causing her to set on fire, the Guangzhou Daily reported according to the SCMP.
Gao Xiaodong, a hospital infection specialist from Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital, told the SCMP: "Out of panic, people have tried various ways to protect themselves. But people should know that this novel coronavirus is more contagious than SARS [Severe acute respiratory syndrome] or MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome], but less deadly than them."
"Online rumors that aim to grab the public's attention send wrong messages and also fuel people's panic," he added.
The WHO stresses that the best way to protect oneself from COVID-19 is to follow basic and hygiene measures that should always be observed. These include frequently washing hands with soap and water, or an alcohol-based rub if the hands aren't visibly dirty, to kill the virus.
Cough and sneeze into a tissue or the crook of your elbow, and immediately throw tissues into the trash and clean your hands to prevent the bug from spreading and contaminating objects.
The U.N. agency also advises against touching the eyes, nose and mouth, to prevent bugs from entering the body. Also avoid contact with sick animals or those in markets, spoiled animal products, as well as their waste products or fluids. Try not to eat raw or undercooked animal products, and be careful when handling raw meat, milk, or animal organs.
This article has been updated with comment from Professor Mark Harris, and Ravinder Kanda.
People wait for the train in Tokyo's Ginza area on February 17, 2020. - Japan said on February 17 it would cancel a public gathering to celebrate the birthday of new Emperor Naruhito on February 23, as fears grow over the spread of the new COVID-19 coronavirus in the country.
