HIV drugs didn’t work as a coronavirus treatment in a clinical trial
Doctors, researchers and health officials scrambling to find treatments for coronavirus-infected patients may have had one hope dashed. Researchers had hoped that antiviral drugs used to treat HIV might also work against the coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2 (SN: 3/10/20). Both HIV and the coronavirus need an enzyme called a protease to make infectious virus. The drugs inhibit the action of the protease. A trial of 199 people randomly assigned to get the drugs plus standard care — including supplemental oxygen, antibiotics for follow-on bacterial infections and other measures as needed — or standard care alone has deflated those hopes. The trial in Beijing tested the HIV drugs, called lopinavir and ritonavir, on people who were severely ill with pneumonia caused by COVID-19. Comparing outcomes from 94 people who got the drugs with results from 100 patients who received standard care showed no benefit to the drugs, researchers report March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drugs shortened the time it took to see clinical...