My first post,with questions.

Hello World! I trust you're all doing as well as can be expected.

Some background for you: I'm a 62 years old man with a truly untypical list of descendants.

I also unenviably have the Hepatitis C virus in my body where it's resided since 1983.

I have spent the last 15 years researching this little lump of RNA.(65nM) in diameter.

The covid 19 virus belongs to the same class of viruses as the Hep C virus and so it seemed to me to be a rational deduction that the current crop of available treatment options for Hep C could have a positive potential for covid 19.

I was not alone in thinking this, as you will see.

Some background: the Hep C virus has 6 main genotypes, predictably 1,2,3,4,5,6 also subdivided into a's and b's.

My genotype is 1a , the most common one in Europe and N.America.

One of the treatment options for me makes use of a combination of three antiviral medicines,namely Sofosbuvir + Daclatasvir, and Ribavirin. This combination typically achieves a success rate of between 94 and 99 %.

As an aside, Sofosbuvir was created by a biotech company called Gilead Sciences who are based in California. They were handed 60 billion dollars by the U.S. government and told to find a cure for Hep C. In 2013 Gilead announced their creation of Sofosbuvir and made it available for a standard treatment duration of 12 weeks (84 days) at a cost of $84000 dollars. This is the infamous $1000 pill!

Since then,largely as a result of India and China producing identical copies,(confirmed in labs),the price has hit the floor, Daclatasvir for example costs 0.50 U.S.Dollars/pill.

Now, I am fully aware of the pariah status of Iran on the international stage but the truth is unavoidable,their health system is extremely impressive,(not what you commonly read in the western press eh?) and they had the same idea concerning the similarities between the covid 19 and the Hep C virus so they conducted a small trial on 30 people with another 30 as controls. Some of these people were already on ventilators and in a bad way.

Now, because of the politics involved here,I'm stopping typing at this point to see the reaction of readers so far. If it is decided that it is neccessary to delete this post then that's fine with me. But bear this in mind, all of the people who have died to date, and all of those facing a similar fate may well have died for no good reason other than for  political considerations. 

You take your choices and you live with them.

I'll come back in two days and gauge the reaction, at which point I'll make the decision to continue,or not,as the case may be.

So have as good a day as possible, and I wish you all well.

Good evening Technophobe. Both  are +ve sense RNA viruses. (Basically quite similar).

I should have stated in my first post, these are not theories, what I'm referring to is medical science/results and is actually freely available to view on the web,if you know where to look/dig. I mentioned a number of patients were on ventilators, within a few days they all walked out of the hospital,that's how effective the drug combination is.

The importance of these antivirals cannot be overstated because the aim of using them is to eradicate the virus from the body. Given the growing realisation that an individual can catch this more than once means that there is no such thing as "herd immunity", so surviving it once provides no protection from going down with it again. Truly a nightmare scenario given the size of the population needing treatment.(7 billion,or thereabouts.)

I hope that people understand my position, this took place in Iran,and I consider it prudent to tread very carefully due to that tinderbox simply awaiting  a spark. To be involved by having this information makes me very nervous because I'm very aware of the forces involved.

I personally expected Pegulated Interferon to be the focus, and if you look at the range of drugs under investigation , a number of types of Interferon are on the list. Having personal experience of exposure to this protein makes me shudder because it ravages the mind and body, and the side effects are lifelong. I wouldn't personally wish exposure to Interferon to my worst enemy,it's that bad.

Anyway,enough rambling. Thank you for your reply and welcome, I hope we'll speak more.

Welcome to the forum from Alberta Canada TellieTubie!

Most of this conversation flu (pardon the pun) right over my head, but this forum is about (jmho) learning and discussing various points of pandemic - not just our current one, but past and future as well.  

So as far as I'm concerned - feel free to bring the conversation to the table.  Some will agree, some won't but any/all possible 'help' is much needed and thinking outside the box has solved a LOT of problems!

.....oh and meant to add that another HCV drug is currently being combined with an  HIV drug in ongoing trials  Ganovo (danoprevir) with ritonavir so their is definitely interest in HCV

HZ X

Reference:

Progress of Ganovo and ritonavir combo on novel coronavirus pneumonia

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/progress-of-ganovo-and-ritonavir-combo-on-novel-coronavirus-pneumonia

Welcome tellietubbie and Coronavirusforum, 

What I like on this forum is the variaty of views, opinions, information. Will there be a vaccin against Covid19 ? I do think most countries have a "social contract" in wich government/rulers provide essentials-like care, housing, transport to be accepted by the people. 

North Korea may have been succesfull in keeping Covid19 out of its borders for a long time-but the price for it is high. Iran is in many ways-for science-almost a "first world" country. 

What I know of hepatitus-C is 2% of global population has it-it has become treatable the last decades. In the best scenario you have to go for check-up a few times a year-with medication. Still a lot of people do not get such a "best scenario Prevention is needed. 

I find it interesting that so much faith is put into the idea of a vaccine because if the influenza vaccine which is  offered each year to a select proportion of the U.K is anything to go by, it's going to have to be quite a vaccine to put it mildly.

Why? There are multiple variants and sub-variants of the Influenza virus, and each year a bunch of Virologists make an educated guess into which variant is most likely to appear that Winter season and cause problems, and they do this every year. Result? Each year millions of us get the flu. Who knew? Not me.

I stopped counting the number of people who claimed that the vaccine gave them the flu a long time ago. I know and understand that the Influenza vaccine is purported to contain inactivated viral particles but that doesn't explain this unusual outcome which in this country is a major problem with the uptake of the vaccine.

I personally decline the offer each year because : 1. I consider a flip of a many sided coin as explained closer to Witchcraft than Virology, and 2: I already have my very own population of a virus which is notable for its ability to mutate and manage to create one billion copies of itself every day.( Thankfully my Immune system takes care of nearly all of these "babies"), but as was explained to me,"The virus you have today will not be the same as the virus you have next week. So I prefer the idea of letting my Immune system concentrate on the most pressing current problem without the introduction of a potentially fatal pathogen to add to the mix. and 3: I have taken daily for about 15 years 10,000 international units of vit d3 and have had zero colds and/or flu in that time even though at times I have played the Devils Advocate and purposefully sat close to friends/family who have been diagnosed with the flu.I just can't seem to catch it.and 4:I was foolish enough to type the following into the google search engine "Baxter Ferrets",obviously without the quotation marks.The result dented my faith somewhat.

The last time I looked, over thirty variants of covid 19 (our local name!) had been identified. I really don't want an update.

So,regardless of the chances of actually getting such a vaccine,( Doubts spurred on by Donny's attempt to seduce the Germans with Gold into giving him sole rights to any vaccine they develop), I would want to see a phial extracted by machine led randomness injected into world leaders televised across the globe. Then,and only then would I consider baring my skin.Argue all you like,it's mine,not yours.

I'm sure you'll understand that it's not that I don't trust our political leaders,but more of a case that I'm not privy to their version of the English language so I would be hesitant to believe my own ears. (or something along those lines!).

So,unlike many people,I'm not holding my breath expecting a magical potion (vaccine) mostly because of a mix of the above and the fact that  I live alone and have managed to avoid all contact since last October,(but it only started in January,I hear you cry), yes,ok.

Have a good day people of planet earth, and sod bed bugs,don't let anything/anybody BITE YOU.

Coronavirusforum, hello, my rambling post two up from (hopefully) here was in reply to your call for a vaccine.