Repurposing Hepatitis Drugs For Covid-19 Treatment

While researchers are still finding novel ways to cure hepatitis, the virus has shown them a new direction. HCV shares similarity with the currently prevalent SARS-CoV-2 by having a single-stranded RNA, while HBV has a double-stranded DNA as its genetic material. As a result, repurposing of existing therapies has emerged as a major area of drug development for COVID-19 and selected hepatitis drugs among others are being studied for repositioning to manage the pandemic.

- Swati Shrivastava

As the world celebrates Hepatitis Day on July 28, 2020, the count of people globally affected by hepatitis would be more than 325 million. Also, the count of annual average deaths by the most prevalent forms of Hepatitis- B & C (HBV and HCV) would be 1.4 million. Being one of the leading causes of death, these two viruses kill more than human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and malaria and are responsible for two out of every three liver cancer deaths globally.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is the major cause of acute sporadic and epidemic hepatitis in India. The frequency of hepatitis C has been reported to be 1-2 per cent among voluntary blood donors and about 15-30 per cent cases of acute hepatitis in India is due to HBV.

These numbers may sound terrifying but significant progress is being made in both the prevention and treatment of the various forms of hepatitis. Vaccination is now available for both hepatitis A (HAV) and hepatitis B, and since hepatitis D (HDV) only occurs when a hepatitis B infection is present, this leaves only hepatitis C and hepatitis E in need of a vaccination for prevention.

Also, there are a number of drugs approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for management of HBV and HCV infections which include interferon therapy- PEG-IFN alfa-2a, PEG- IFN alfa-2b; nucleoside and nucleotide analogues- Adefovir, Entecavir, Emtricitabine, Lamivudine, Ribavirin Telbivudine, Tenofovir; and newer direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAAs)Simeprevir, Sofosbuvir, Ledipasvir, Ombitasvir, Paritaprevir, Dasabuvir, Elbasvir and Grazoprevir, Velpatasvir