A hope to treat dengue: they develop a powerful antiviral against the disease

An international team of researchers has developed an ultra-potent inhibitor of the virus dengue, an antiviral molecule, tested in mice, that has been shown to be “exceptionally effective” against all variants of the virus and that could be used to treat and prevent disease.

The finding, the details of which are published today in the journal “Nature”, has been developed by researchers from the Rega Institute and the Center for Design and Discovery of Drugs (CD3), both in Belgium, and by the American pharmaceutical company Janssen, with the collaboration from research centers in Germany, Canada and France.

and it kills several thousand, numbers that, as the effects of climate change progress, will be even worse. In fact, the World Health Organization has included this disease in the list of ten threats to global health.

Currently, dengue, transmitted by mosquitoes, is found in almost all tropical regions, with a special incidence in Latin America and Asia.

Its symptoms include although some patients also suffer subcutaneous hemorrhages or capillary losses. As of today, there are no medications that prevent or treat dengue.

The finding of the teams of Johan Neyts (Rega Institute), Patrick Chaltin (CD3 / CISTIM), and Marnix van Loock (Janssen) could change things.

has a unique mechanism, says Neyts: “Together with the Ralf Bartenschlager research group from the University of Heidelberg, we demonstrated that our inhibitor that are part of a kind of copier of the genetic material of the virus. By blocking this interaction, the virus can no longer copy its genetic material ” nor replicate.

Later, with the team of Xavier de Lamballerie (University of Aix-Marseille), the researchers demonstrated that the antiviral is very effective against all known variants of the dengue virus and, finally, they tested the doses of the inhibitor and found that it was even very effective.

Also, treatment is still effective when the infection is already at its peak. In these cases, the number of virus particles in the blood was drastically reduced in the 24 hours following the start of treatment. This shows how extremely powerful the antiviral drug is ”, Suzanne Kaptein (Rega Institute) stands out.

Research suggests that the inhibitor could also be used for prevention, which would be very positive, as the current dengue vaccine offers only partial protection.

”Strong and safe dengue drugs, which can be easily taken in tablet form, couldpound neyts.

“Take, for example, people living in areas with an ongoing dengue outbreak: they could take a dengue medicine for a couple of days or weeks. The tablets could also protect travelers or NGO workers while staying in high-risk regions ”, suggests the scientist.

The antiviral drug will be developed into an easy-to-administer formulation that can be optimized for the treatment and prevention of disease in tropical and subtropical regions where dengue is endemic.

After twelve years of research, the authors have designed an equally effective molecule for all four types of dengue virus.

The compound JNJ-A07 was found after examining thousands of possible candidates, in a process that researcher Johan Neyts described as

There are four different strains of the virus, so infection with one does not protect against another, and contracting the dengue a second time it is usually more serious.

So far there is no treatment, and efforts are focused on reducing its transmission, including a program that infects mosquitoes with bacteria resistant to the disease.

Agencies

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