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With Spring Break just around the corner, and thousands of teenagers flooding Florida beaches, Americans are searching for a way to keep the UK variant as controlled and minimized as possible. In Florida, there are already 1,000 cases, and because of its highly contagious rate, this number will only increase.
Besides a newly-implemented 9 pm curfew in this state, scientists are considering the solution might have actually been discovered in the 1960s; 2 drugs that helped fight Leprosy. Researchers have found this antibiotic to be an extremely viable solution, as it’s already FDA approved.
According to health experts, Covid-19 variants are believed to be responsible for another surge, and a possible third wave of cases. University of Florida health researcher and professor of pathology Dr David Ostroff, has discovered a pattern of mutation and a structural pocket on a particular position named the Bette mutation (honoring the biologist, Bette Korbe who found this location). According to Ostroff, “the majority of coronaviruses around the world right now have this Bette mutation. So if we can find drugs that bind the site encoded by this mutation, we might have new drugs that will have direct antiviral activity against all the emerging variants." (Doctor David Ostroff, ABC First Coast News. 2021.)
Due to this theory, this doctor has already put on trial over 1,200 FDA-approved drugs that could attack and slow down the high rate of transmission of these new variables (especially UK’s) from which he identified Sulfoxone to possibly become the most helpful of all candidates. This one will be used for Ostrov’s clinical trials, but similar published research has placed another anti-leprosy drug, Clozafimine, as a feasible, low-cost, FDA-approved alternative. This one has shown exemplary outcomes in hamsters, as it exhibits anti-viral properties and blocks the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to enter cells and replicate via RNA. Consequently, the virus slows down and limits any possible inflammatory response (a common consequence of the virus also called Cytokine Storm). The hamsters that received this drug, had less lung damage and a lower viral load, especially when received as a preventive drug, which also holds great promise.
So, what is the next step? It is now up to WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines to decide if it's appropriate to repurpose the antibiotic for Covid. Thankfully, phase 2 of clinical trials for both drugs (Sulfoxone and Clozafimine) are taking place now, and if this theory is corroborated by successful case subjects, this drug could be deployed.
In conclusion, thanks to David Ostroff, a safe, affordable, easy to make and consume pill which has served to cure Leprosy, can now be reassigned and marketed to fight off this deadly virus, and save thousands of lives.
Camila
Bibliography
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Fox4now (Director). (2021, March 18). Leprosy drug may help FIGHT variant of COVID that is prevalent in Florida [Video file]. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from
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LeMieux, J. (2021, March 17). Decades-old leprosy drug inhibits coronaviruses, may treat covid-19. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from