Mexico’s IMSS and Cinvestav work on a new treatment against Covid-19

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The Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) and the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav) of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) will initiate the Fantaze study, to be able to develop an early antiviral therapy against Covid-19 in the initial phase, a project in which the University College London is also participating.

During the investigation, it will be analyzed whether the viral load of a suspected or confirmed person with SARS-CoV-2 virus infection could be reduced – more than ten times – after taking two antiviral drugs that have different mechanisms of action, such as Favipiravir and Nitazoxanide.

It is very common to use combination therapies to treat difficult illnesses. In the face of resistant strains of viruses and bacteria, combinations of drugs are used and that is the idea here, to attack this bug that invades us through different routes.

This study, which is associated with the Flare clinical trial that is currently recruiting patients in the United Kingdom, also covers the treatment behavior of the different variants, such as Delta, which is circulating in our country.

In Mexico we have Nitazoxanide, for many years, we know it well, we know that it is safe and at the University College London we have worked extensively with Favipiravir, these are two drugs that we know well. Favipiravir is not commercially available in Mexico and we are going to bring it from India, ” the expert explained.

At a virtual press conference, Tania Smith, a Cinvestav researcher, pointed out that the study began by evaluating the two drugs that were most likely to achieve a sufficient concentration to eradicate the coronavirus.

For his part, Jorge Escobedo de la Peña, Head of the Clinical Epidemiology Research Unit of HGR No. 1 Carlos Mac Gregor of the IMSS, reported that the Fantaze study will be carried out at the Hospital de Infectología del Centro Médico Nacional (CMN) La Raza, where it is intended to recruit 120 beneficiaries between 18 and 70 years of age who are candidates for the investigation.

Source: Excelsior

Mexico Daily Post