CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health say an orally administered experimental drug has proven effective at preventing and treating COVID-19 in mice in a lab setting.
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According to the scientists, the drug, EIDD-2801, halts SARS-CoV-2 replication and prevents infection of human cells in mice that are engineered to have human lung tissue.
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The work was published Tuesday in Nature.
The scientists said they found that the drug was extremely effective at preventing and treating infection in the mice. Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are ongoing to evaluate EIDD-2801 safety in humans and its effect on transmission from person to person in COVID-19 patients.
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"We found that EIDD-2801 had a remarkable effect on virus replication after only two days of treatment - a dramatic, more than 25,000-fold reduction in the number of infectious particles in human lung tissue when treatment was initiated 24 hours post-exposure," said senior author J. Victor Garcia, PhD, professor of medicine and director of the International Center for the Advancement of Translational Science, in a written statement. "Virus titers were significantly reduced by 96% when treatment was started 48 hours post-exposure."
The drug is not yet FDA-approved or authorized as a COVID-19 treatment.