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(Redirected from Interferon alpha 2b)
Pharmaceutical drug
Pharmaceutical compound
The medication is being used in clinical trials to treat patients with SARS-CoV-2 and there are published results in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
So far, two non-peer reviewed research articles have been published. One study at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, showed evidence of a direct anti-viral effect of Interferon alpha against novel Coronavirus in vitro. The study demonstrated around 10,000 fold reduction in the quantity of virus that was pre-treated with Interferon alpha 48 hours earlier. A second study by universities in China, Australia and Canada analysed 77 moderate COVID-19 subjects in Wuhan and observed that those who received Interferon alpha-2b showed a significant reduction in the duration of virus shedding period and even in levels of the inflammatory cytokine, IL-6.
This drug is also used off-label in cats and dogs, both by injection and orally. The cross-species nature of IFN-α allow it to work in non-human animals, but the period of usefulness is limited by the production of antibodies against this foreign protein.
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Mantei N, Schwarzstein M, Streuli M, Panem S, Nagata S, Weissmann C (June 1980). "The nucleotide sequence of a cloned human leukocyte interferon cDNA". Gene. 10 (1): 1–10. doi:10.1016/0378-1119(80)90137-7. PMID6157600.
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