New weapon in fight against flu found

Published on Monday 31 May 2010 21:08

RESEARCHERS believe they have developed a "highly potent" new drug capable of saving thousands of lives by protecting people against the spread of swine, bird and seasonal flu.

In a new paper published in Nature Biotechnology, scientists from Hong Kong and Canada revealed they had carried out positive tests of the new chemical "nucleozin" in mice.

If successful, it could provide a successor to Tamiflu – otherwise known as oseltamivir – which experts believe is sometimes ineffective, and also runs the risk of a strand of flu virus developing which is immune to it.

Richard Yao, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who led the study, said: "We now have brand new weapons to combat influenza virus resistant to (antiviral drugs such as] oseltamivir and zanamivir.

"Nucleozin is highly potent in cell culture and also in mice infected with the highly pathogenic influenza virus H5N1 (it can] stop the virus from replicating.

"Scientists could now use nucleoprotein as a target to develop antiviral therapeutics for the treatment of influenza infection."

Swine flu, which is a strand of H1N1, was present in more than 14,000 deaths worldwide following last year's outbreak, while 262 people were killed in a bird flu – H5N1 – epidemic in 2003.

In most cases, victims would have already been ill and the virus would have been a contributory factor in their deaths.

Between 5 and 10 per cent of us get flu each year, and even in non-epidemic years it is attributed to up to 4,000 additional deaths in the UK.

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said: "There's still a big need for powerful antivirals and the more we have of them the better.

"Tamiflu is the market leader, but the big problem is that it doesn't always work. We are still waiting to find out how it worked during the swine flu epidemic. Tamiflu is good, but it's far from perfect – a lot of people died. If we could come up with a more powerful drug than Tamiflu that would be very good.

"Everyone is always very worried about the possibility of a Tamiflu-resistant virus. That's why we need a second drug that is quite different."

However, with nucleozin still at the stage where it is being tested on mice, it could be years before it becomes available to the wider public.

Prof Pennington said: "What they have to do is balance how well it works on people, and test for any negatives it might have – that's absolutely crucial.

"It's not having any negative effects on mice, which is very promising. So there will be tests done on a small scale, with volunteers and so on.

"It could still be several years before this is available – two or three years would be pretty rapid."