Flu and HIV Drugs Show Efficacy Against Coronavirus

Combining the medications improved conditions in patients with severe 2019-nCoV infections, say doctors in Thailand.

Written byCatherine Offord

| 2 min read

Listen with Speechify

0:00

2:00

ABOVE: WIKIMEDIA, MK2010

A combination of flu and HIV medications may be able to treat severe cases of 2019-nCoV, the new coronavirus that has emerged in China, according to doctors in Thailand who have been caring for infected patients. The team’s approach, which used large doses of the flu drug oseltamivir combined with HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, improved the conditions of several patients at the Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok.

“This is not the cure, but the patient’s condition has vastly improved,” Rajavithi Hospital’s Kriangsak Atipornwanich says of one 70-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, according to Reuters. “From testing positive for 10 days under our care, after applying this combination of medicine the test result became negative within 48 hours.”

Thailand has so far recorded 19 cases of coronavirus, Reuters reports, making it the country with the greatest number of infections in Southeast Asia. Eight patients have recovered, while the ...

Interested in reading more?

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
View Full Profile