Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, United Kingdom.
Med Hypotheses. 2020 Sep;142:109754. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.109754. Epub 2020 Apr 22.
The recent global pandemic created by the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, started in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has generated panic, both in term of human death (4-5% of infected patients identified through testing) and the global economy. Human sufferings seem to be continuing, and it is not clear how long this will continue and how much more destruction it is going to cause until complete control is achieved. One of the most disturbing issues is Covid-19 treatment; although a large number of medications, previously used successfully with other viruses (including Chinese herbal medicines and anti-malaria drugs), are under consideration, there remain questions as to whether they can play a satisfactory role for this disease. Global attempts are ongoing to find the drugs for the treatment of this virus but none of the antiviral drugs used for treatment of other human viral infection is working and hence attempts to find new drugs are continuing. Here the author is proposing that 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) which when used on its own is failing as an antiviral agent due to the removal of this compound by proof reading ability exceptionally found in Coronaviruses. The author here is proposing to test 5-FU in combination with a number of deoxynucleosides on animal models infected with this Covid-19. Should encouraging results ensue, therapies could then be tried on patients.
由新型冠状病毒 SARS-CoV-2 引起的最近一次全球大流行始于 2019 年 12 月的中国武汉,引发了恐慌,不仅在人类死亡(通过检测确定的感染者中有 4-5%)方面,而且在全球经济方面。人类的苦难似乎还在继续,目前还不清楚这种情况还会持续多久,还会造成多大的破坏,直到完全控制住为止。最令人不安的问题之一是新冠病毒的治疗;尽管有大量的药物,包括中药和抗疟药,以前曾成功用于治疗其他病毒,但对于这种疾病是否能发挥令人满意的作用仍存在疑问。全球正在努力寻找治疗这种病毒的药物,但目前用于治疗其他人类病毒感染的抗病毒药物都没有效果,因此仍在继续寻找新药。在这里,作者建议使用氟尿嘧啶(5-FU),由于冠状病毒中发现的异常校对能力会将其清除,因此单独使用 5-FU 作为抗病毒剂的效果不佳。作者建议在感染这种新冠病毒的动物模型上,用 5-FU 与多种脱氧核苷联合进行测试。如果结果令人鼓舞,则可以在患者身上尝试这些疗法。