New York. Researchers say that the antivirus drug Paxlovid, developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, is also effective for the treatment of new variants of COVID-19. Researchers from Rutgers University in the US say that Pfizer’s drug paxlovid jams the cell machinery of a key protein, known as a key protease, or mpro. This protein itself helps to increase the number of viruses.
The Omicron variant of COVID is spreading rapidly around the world and is currently causing havoc in Asia.
Very few medicines are available in the market for the treatment of COVID. In such a situation, doctors are relying on medicines like Paxlovid to prevent the spread of corona infection.
According to the study published in the journal Cell Research, scientists have discovered through genetic analysis that the virus is now taking different forms and it is producing strains on which current treatment methods are not successful.
At least for now, there is hope for Pfizer’s drug, said Jun Wang, associate professor in the department of medicinal chemistry at the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.
“Omicron is still fairly new, which is why treatments are still working,” he said.
Wang, however, cautions that as more people take Paxlovid, the drug will begin to become ineffective.
The scientists accessed a public database known as GISAID, which is studying the MPro sequences of all strains of COVID found so far.
The scientists discovered mutations in the genetic sequences of MPro, comparing the recent strain with the earlier corona strain collected by physicians around the world. Potentially new structures of mPro may emerge due to the mutation. These new structures are related to drug resistance.
The researchers discovered the top 25 most common new mutations in the main proteases of several Omicron strains. The most common of these is P132H.
When they tested Pfizer’s drug on the p132H mutation, the antiviral drug proved effective. This was further confirmed by X-ray crystallography, which showed no significant change in the structure of AmPro.
Wang said, this mutation does not cause resistance to paxlovid, which means that the virus can still carry out mutations, which can lead to drug resistance.
When a drug becomes widely used, it takes a short time for resistance to appear, he said.
—AnyTV News
read this also – Click to read the news of your state / city before the newspaper