Spain’s Costa Blanca has Good News with Hospital Holding Key Anti-Coronavirus Drug Trials

A TEAM at Elche General Hospital have joined forces working with the city’s UMH university and regional scientists to start a clinical trial of a drug that might reduce the chances of somebody catching Covid-19.

The trial is one of six projects across the country that are being funded by the Carlos III Health Institute.

Dr Félix Gutiérrez, head of Internal Medicine at Elche General Hospital, said that “this virus has demonstrated a capacity to spread more than other respiratory viruses such as flu.

“Cutting the number of infections by administering a drug to people who get exposed to Covid-19 will be an important way of fighting the spread of the virus.”

The trials will use a drug called mefloquine, which is commonly used in the fight against malaria and has been shown to have an antiviral effect against viruses that are similar to Covid-19.

There are two other antimalarial drugs, namely chloroquine and the well-publicised hydroxychloroquine, which have shown some possibilities, and are being used in some countries as a treatment for Covid-19.

Medical opinion around the world though is certainly divided over the use of hydroxychloroquine, despite US President, Donald Trump, strongly praising it as a possible deal-breaker in sorting out the pandemic.

Dr Mar Masiá, head of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Elche said: “Mefloquine is a drug that, like hydroxychloroquine, is used as an antimalarial remedy. The required doses are straightforward and just one tablet per week is enough to take. Therefore this is a very interesting option for us to focus our clinical trial on.”

There are already several studies using animals that show that mefloquine has some good antiviral properties against other types of coronavirus that are very similar to Covid-19, including SARS-CoV-2.

“We believe that the possibility of using mefloquine, which is also inexpensive and which we can get of hold of easily, is of major medical and scientific interest,” Dr Masiá added.

The effects of the drug will be studied in people who have been in close contact with adults diagnosed with Covid-19.

That’s defined as anybody who lives at home with an infected person, or who have had workplace contact less than two metres away from a Covid-19 sufferer.

Experts believe that a sample of just 200 people might be enough to reach some conclusions.

Hospitals in the Murcia and Madrid regions are also involved in the trial.