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Re:Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent Cov... by jleyank on Monday September 13, 2021 @09:17PM (#28519024)
Actually, I don’t think there are any drugs developed to fight COVID. Yeah, there are monoclonal antibodies developed from the initial cohort of symptomatic patients, and various anti inflammatories that have been effective in reducing the intensity of a cytokine storm. There are small molecule efforts, but these things take time. There is a delta specific vaccine in initial clinical trials but it’s bloody hard to get a placebo group together anymore.

The vaccines (of which there are both traditional and novel delivery mechanisms and payloads) represent the best way of reducing the impact of the infection. There is only a short window in most people in which there is an active COVID infection. The problem starts with the aftermath - those with a strong, active immune system zap their lungs or other organ systems. Hence the anti inflammatories.

Viruses aren’t fully alive and they lack many/most of the biological features typical drugs affect. Thus, unless there’s a fortunate side effect, the risk to the human > risk to the virus.

Re:Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent Cov... by dham on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @08:31AM (#28523724)
I assume everyone was working on treatments. My sibling works at Pfizer as a Sas programmer / manager (mostly cancer trials) and they're working on a study with an old HIV drug.

That's just one small team in a huge company.

Edit: Just got clarification it's PF-07321332. I think it's related to ritonivir? Not super sure