Experimental drug may speed viral clearance; Cloth coverings in public spaces may slow virus spread

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Experimental drug may speed viral clearance

An experimental antiviral drug significantly sped up the time it took to "clear" the virus in COVID-19 patients who did not need to be hospitalized, Toronto researchers have found.

In a small trial, patients who received a single injection of peginterferon-lambda were more than four times as likely to test negative for the virus within seven days as patients who received a placebo.

"The more rapid viral load decline and higher clearance rate were most pronounced in those with high viral loads" the authors reported on Friday in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

"The magnitude of the viral load decline compared with that of placebo was much greater ... than has been reported with monoclonal antibody therapies," they added.

"This treatment has large therapeutic potential," study leader Dr. Jordan Feld of Toronto Center for Liver Disease said in a statement.

Respiratory symptoms also appeared to resolve faster with peginterferon-lambda therapy, but the trial was too small to demonstrate a statistically significant difference.

Feld's team is planning a much larger trial, and studies are already underway testing the treatment in hospitalized patients.

Cloth coverings in public spaces may slow virus spread

Covering furniture in hospitals and offices with surfaces that speed evaporation of respiratory droplets will slow the spread of COVID-19, a new study suggests.

Earlier research found that the virus remains active for a longer time on impermeable surfaces.

In the new study, researchers found that once respiratory droplets disappear, a thin liquid film remains over the exposed solid area that serves as a medium for virus survival.

That thin film evaporates much faster on porous surfaces, they noted in a report published Wednesday in Physics of Fluids.

They found that the virus can survive four days on glass and seven days on plastic or stainless steel, but only two days on cloth and three hours on paper.

"Based on our study, we recommend that furniture in hospitals and offices made of impermeable material, such as glass, stainless steel, or laminated wood, be covered with porous material, such as cloth, to reduce the risk of infection upon touch," coauthor Sanghamitro Chatterjee of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Mumbai said in a statement.

Her team says seats in public places could also be covered with cloth to lessen the risk of disease spread. -- Reuters