Researchers find potential Zika treatments among available medications

From AMA Morning Rounds, 8/30/16.

The Wall Street Journal (8/29, Hernandez, Subscription Publication) reports that a study published in Nature Medicine has found several potential treatments for Zika from 6,000 drugs either already commercially available or currently in clinical trials. Study author Wei Zheng, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, explains how drug repurposing can be useful in emergencies like Zika, where researchers do not have the time to go through a prolonged development process.

The Miami Herald (8/29, Chang) reports the study found “that two different groups of drug compounds…can potentially stop Zika from replicating in the body and damaging fetal brains.” The compounds “include emricasan, an drug currently undergoing a clinical trial to reduce liver injury and fibrosis, and niclosamide, a chewable tablet used to treat tapeworm.” The researchers say the next step is to test the drugs on animals infected with the Zika virus.

FDA gives zika blood test emergency approval USA Today (8/29, Blumenthal) reports that the Food and Drug Administration “has given Roche Holdings emergency approval to use one of its Zika blood testing kits.” The emergency approval “will allow for testing of the virus through Roche’s LightMix Zika rRT-PCR test, which has not been approved by the FDA yet.”

For more information, visit the AMA’s Zika Virus Resource Center.