Scientists around the world have dropped everything to work on a COVID-19 cure, but that’s not always the most successful strategy. “It’s a cacophony — it’s not an orchestra. There’s no conductor,” said Derek Angus, chair of the department of critical care medicine at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In other news, a potential treatment sets off a diplomatic war and doctors start focusing on blood clots’ role in the disease.
The Washington Post: Coronavirus Treatment: Chaotic Search For Drugs Lacks Centralized Strategy
In a desperate bid to find treatments for people sickened by the coronavirus, doctors and drug companies have launched more than 100 human experiments in the United States, investigating experimental drugs, a decades-old malaria medicine and cutting-edge therapies that have worked for other conditions such as HIV and rheumatoid arthritis. Development of effective treatments for covid-19, the disease the virus causes, would be one of the most significant milestones in returning the United States to normalcy. (Johnson, 4/15)
The Wall Street Journal: Japan, China Vie To Be Global Supplier Of Unproven Coronavirus Drug
A drug called favipiravir has set off a diplomatic tug of war between geopolitical rivals Japan and China, both of which are offering it to other nations as a gesture to fight the coronavirus pandemic. What makes the rival diplomacy unusual is the lack of solid evidence that either country’s pills can help virus victims. No peer-reviewed research suggests the drug’s efficacy in fighting Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and previous studies show favipiravir could cause birth defects if taken by pregnant women. (Landers and Inada, 4/16)
Stat: Blood Clots Leave Clinicians With Clues About Covid-19 — But No Proven Treatments
Doctors treating the sickest Covid-19 patients have zeroed in on a new phenomenon: Some people have developed widespread blood clots, their lungs peppered with tiny blockages that prevent oxygen from pumping into the bloodstream and body. A number of doctors are now trying to blast those clots with tPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, an antithrombotic drug typically reserved for treating strokes and heart attacks. Other doctors are eyeing the blood thinner heparin as a potential way to prevent clotting before it starts. (Cooney, 4/16)
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