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From Herald Sun today.

HOW MIRACLE ‘SHIELD’ DRUG COULD SAVE AUSTRALIA

A drug that can potentially shield people from coronavirus is to be rolled out to front line Victorian healthcare workers within four weeks.

The breakthrough medical trial by Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research hopes to block people from COVID-19 infections for as long as the daily pills are taken, eliminating the need to treat them and allowing the health system to continue operating.

If successful laboratory testing can be replicated in the human trial – involving 2250 nurses, doctors, paramedics and allied healthcare workers – the use of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is also touted as a way of saving the lives of nursing home residents and others most at risk from the pandemic.

Although other trials are examining hydroxychloroquine as part of a potential cure for coronavirus, the WEHI team led by Prof Marc Pellegrini intendeds to take its use a step further as a preventive measure.

“We are giving them this before they are exposed (to coronavirus), and obviously the drug will be on-board when they are exposed and the hope is it stops the establishment of the infection of the disease,” Prof Pellegrini said.

“It’s incredibly heartwarming to see you are finding something that might actually be able to prevent the devastation that COVID-19 is causing.”

Health Minister Greg Hunt appears set to announce as early as Wednesday plans to develop a preventive pill alternative as the world waits for a vaccine.

The WEHI team have already sought government support for its $3 million antiviral treatment, while processes to gain regulatory and ethical approvals have been fast tracked to just four weeks.

The double-blind trial will see 2250 front line healthcare workers at the COVID-19 coalface recruited to take two 200mg pills a day for four months.

While half will receive hydroxychloroquine, sold in Australia as Plaquenil, others will only take a placebo.

However, if the trial shows a strong results at its half way stage Prof Pellegrini said the preventive would be rolled out to the wider health workforce, as well as other vulnerable communities.

“In a nursing home, if there is one person identified as having COVID-19 then you would flood that nursing home with this drug to try and stop others developing the disease,” he said.

“You could do prophylaxis across the broad spectrum of the system.

“It is really a logistic issue around getting enough drug for everybody who is at risk.”

First developed 70 years ago and widely used as an antimalarial and lupus treatment, hydroxychloroquine is a generic medicine that would only cost about $13 for a two-month supply.

First examined as a potential SARS treatment in the early 2000s, the WEHI and other research teams dusted off hydroxychloroquine when the earliest warnings emerged about the new coronavirus threat.

You can get it here on prescription.