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A health worker culls poultry - Source: Reuters -
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Scientists in Hong Kong and the United States have identified a
synthetic compound which appears to be able to stop the replication
of influenza viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu virus.
The search for such new inhibitors has grown more urgent in recent
years as drugs, like oseltamivir, have become largely ineffective
against certain flu strains, like the H1N1 seasonal flu virus.
Experts now question how well and how long the drug would stand
up against the H5N1, should it unleash a pandemic.
Researchers in Hong Kong and the Unites States screened some
230,000 compounds that were catalogued with the US National Cancer
Institute, and found 20 that could potentially restrict the
proliferation of the H5N1.
The experts told a news conference one of the compounds, compound 1
or NSC89853, showed promise.
"We have found a compound that is different from oseltamivir but
which acts in the same way," said Leo Poon, a microbiologist at the
University of Hong Kong.
"An analogy would be like we have a door with a keyhole, but the
hole has changed, and the key, in this case oseltamivir, can't lock
the door anymore," he told the news conference.
"But we have discovered another keyhole and another key which can
lock the door."
Their finding was published in the latest issue of the Journal of
Medicinal Chemistry.
In their experiment, the researchers infected separate batches of
cultured human cells with seasonal flu virus and H5N1 and found
that compound 1 prevented the replication of both types of viruses
effectively.
"Given the problems with drug resistance, this compound can be used
to develop a new drug," said Allan Lau, professor of paediatrics
and adolescent medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
But he cautioned it would take as much as eight years for such a
drug to be available on the market.
Many advanced countries stock up on oseltamivir and zanamivir, two
varieties of the same class of drugs that stops the H5N1 virus from
multiplying.
But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in March
that 98 percent of all flu samples from the H1N1 strain were
resistant to oseltamivir, which is manufactured by Roche AG and
marketed under the brand Tamiflu.
Viruses and bacteria are sturdy organisms that fight hard to
survive and adapt swiftly to drugs that are used to kill them,
quickly becoming resistant to them.
