Australian researchers on Monday claimed to have found two drugs they believe can cure the deadly Coronavirus.
The drugs include an HIV drug and an anti-malaria medicine called chloroquine.
University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research Director, David Paterson told news.com.au that the two drugs, which were used in test tubes, stopped coronavirus in its tracks and a clinical trial on humans was ready to begin.
David, who is also an infectious diseases physician disclosed that patients will likely enroll in a clinical trial of both drugs by the end of March.
According to him, one of the medications had been administered to some of the first few patients in Australia, and they completely recovered.
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He said: “It’s a potentially effective treatment. Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of therapy,
“What we want to do at the moment is a large clinical trial across Australia, looking at 50 hospitals, and what we’re going to compare is one drug versus the other, versus the combination of the two drugs,
“We’re not on a flat foot, we can sort of move ahead very rapidly with enrolling Australians in this trial,
“We want to give Australians the absolute best treatment rather than just someone’s guesses or someone’s anecdotal experiences from a few people,
“And that way, if we can test it in this first wave of patients, we do fully expect that there are going to be ongoing infections for months and months ahead, we’ll have the best possible information to treat subsequent patients,
“That’s really our aim, to get real world experience in Australia.”
Professor Paterson has launched a fundraising appeal alongside the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital to raise money to support the clinical trials. The Coronavirus Action Fund hopes to raise $750,000.