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Ending the pandemic and preventing its return is assumed to require an effective vaccine to prevent infection and antiviral drugs such as remdesivir to treat the very sick, but the genetic studies suggest a third strategy: preventive drugs.
It’s possible that treatment with so-called type-1 interferon “could stop the virus before it could get established,” Menachery said.
Giving drugs to healthy people is always a dicey proposition, since all drugs have side effects — something considered less acceptable than when a drug is used to treat an illness. “Interferon treatment is rife with complications,” Menachery warned. The various interferons, which are prescribed for hepatitis, cancers, and many other diseases, can cause flu-like symptoms.
But the risk-benefit equation might shift, both for individuals and for society, if interferons or antivirals or other medications are shown to reduce the risk of developing serious Covid-19 or even make any infection nearly asymptomatic.
In summary, SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques induced humoral and cellular immune responses and provided protective efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 rechallenge. These data raise the possibility that immunologic approaches to the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection may in fact be possible. However, it is critical to emphasize that there are important differences between SARS-CoV-2 infection in macaques and humans, with many parameters still yet to be defined in both species, and thus our data should be interpreted cautiously. Rigorous clinical studies will be required to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 infection effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 re-exposure in humans.