BioRchiv : Otro Tratamiento Oral Que Apunta Maneras . The Oral Drug NITAZOXANIDE Restricts SARS-CoV-2 Infection And Attenuates .

 

A well-tolerated and cost-effective oral drug that blocks SARS-CoV-2 growth and dissemination would be a major advance in the global effort to reduce COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Here, we show that the oral FDA-approved drug NITAZOXANIDE (NTZ) significantly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 viral replication and infection in different primate and human cell models including stem cell-derived human alveolar epithelial type 2 cells.

 Furthermore, NTZ synergizes with remdesivir, and it broadly inhibits growth of SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.351 (beta), P.1 (gamma), and B.1617.2 (delta) and viral syncytia formation driven by their spike proteins.

 Strikingly, oral NTZ treatment of Syrian hamsters significantly inhibits SARS-CoV-2-driven weight loss, inflammation, and viral dissemination and syncytia formation in the lungs. 

These studies show that NTZ is a novel host-directed therapeutic that broadly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 dissemination and pathogenesis in human and hamster physiological models, which supports further testing and optimization of NTZ-based therapy for SARS-CoV-2 infection alone and in combination with antiviral drugs.