Treatment with interferon-α2b and ribavirin improves outcome inMERS-CoV–infected rhesus macaques

Darryl Falzarano, Emmie de Wit, Angela L Rasmussen, Friederike Feldmann, Atsushi Okumura, Dana P Scott, Doug Brining, Trenton Bushmaker, Cynthia Martellaro, Laura Baseler, Arndt G Benecke, Michael G Katze,

Vincent J Munster & Heinz Feldmann. Nat. Med. 2013, 19: 1313-1317

Speaker: Han Lee (李涵)                                                      Time: 15:00~16:00, Mar. 19, 2014

Commentator: Dr. Ching-Chuan Liu (劉清泉 老師)  Place: Room 601

Abstract

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a novel species of the genus Betacoronavirus ¹. The outbreak of MERS-CoV is first identified in a patient from Saudi Arabia in 2012. Globally, World Health Organization has been informed of 184 cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 80 deaths to date, but there is no specific therapy or vaccine for MERS-CoV ². The clinical experience from severe acute respiratory syndrome suggests that numbers of interventions including ribavirin with or without corticosteroids, ribavirin with protease inhibitors,  and interferon with corticosteroids may improve outcome ³. Previous studies showed that the combination of interferon-α2b and ribavirin was effective in reducing MERS-CoVreplication in vitro ⁴. In the present study, the authors treated interferon-α2b and ribavirin after inoculation of rhesus macaque which is the only known model organism for MERS-CoV infection. The treated animals showed improved clinical parameters with no breathing abnormalities and little evidence of pneumonia by X-ray. Also, the lung tissue collected from treated animals showed significant reduction in viral genome copies, absence of gross lesions, and less severe histopathological changes compared to untreated animals. Taken together, this study suggests that treatment of MERS-CoV-infected rhesus macaques with IFN-α2b and ribavirin improves clinical outcome. IFN-α2b and ribavirin treatment would be expected to provide a great benefit in MERS-CoV early infection.

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