Physicians from Thailand say that they may have found a curative treatment for the coronavirus after they used a cocktail of anti-viral medications to treat a woman with the illness this week.
According to Thailand’s health ministry, the 70-year-old Chinese woman tested negative for the virus 48 hours after she was treated with anti-HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, and large doses of the anti-flu drug oseltamivir.
Prior to being treated with the drug combo at Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, she had tested positive for the virus for 10 days in a row. Now, doctors say her speedy recovery from the illness could help solidify the drug combo as a treatment for the virus.
“This is not a cure, but the patient’s condition has vastly improved. From testing positive for 10 days under our care, after applying this combination of medicine the test result became negative within 48 hours,” lung specialist Dr Kriangska Atipornwanich told reporters. “The outlook is good but we still have to do more study to determine that this can be a standard treatment.”
Two other coronavirus patients have reportedly been treated with the drug cocktail, and while the treatment was discontinued for one of the patients following an allergic reaction, the other patient also showed improvement.
