Researchers Believe Existing Drugs May Be Effective Against MERS

With current reports of the MERS virus having entered the U.S., people are scrambling to remain safe from the sometimes-fatal virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that nearly one fourth of people who contract the virus will die. However, several new studies have uncovered potential drug treatments for the virus that can improve the survival rate of those who contract MERS.

Matthew Friedman of the University of Maryland’s Medical School led research into a review against currently approved drugs that might be effective against MERS. Of the 290 different drugs that were reviewed, 27 of those drugs were found to be effective against both MERS and the SARS virus. Both of the viruses come from the same coronavirus family.

Friedman noted that cancer drugs and antipsychotics were among those that were successful in treating MERS. However, he said that it could take a long time to develop drugs specifically designed to treat MERS.

Another study co-led by Eric Snijder of the Leiden University’s Medical Center in the Netherlands screened 348 drugs approved by the FDA. Snijder’s team found 4 drugs that were effective against both MERS and SARS. The antimalarial drug chloroquine and the antipsychotic chlorpromazine were both identified as effective against MERS and SARS in low concentrations in Snijder’s study.

In addition to the previous two studies, a third study at the University of Missouri, co-led by Stefan Sarafianos, found that an experimental drug used to prevent the SARS virus from multiplying had a similar effect on the MERS virus. The experimental drug could potentially be used as a starting point for researchers developing an original MERS treatment, Sarafianos says.

Each of the studies mentioned were published in the Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal’s May 19^th edition. The journal is available online.