An Israeli-developed HIV drug has shown promising results in treating critically ill coronavirus patients in the Congo.
A trial of the HIV drug Gammora was carried out after Dr. Sebastien Mafoundzi of the Congo Cliniquie La Source hospital noted that his HIV patients who had contracted the coronavirus showed significant improvement after receiving their HIV treatment.
Gammora, developed by the Israeli Zion Medical company and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was only recently approved for treating HIV in the central African country of the Republic of the Congo.
Mafoundzi decided to study the phenomenon further and approached the Zion Medical representative in the Congo to request permission to carry out a private compassionate trial on his coronavirus patients with Gammora.
Zion Medical agreed to the trial and World Health Organization (WHO) representative Albert Kazadi supervised the study.
A clinical trial initiated on April 8th by Mafoundzi and Dr. Roger Alphonese Bouity involved two groups of 15 critically ill COVID-19 patients. The first group was treated with the standard care for the coronavirus in the Congo, which is antibotics and Atripla, an HIV medication. The second group received the same treatment with the addition of Gammora injections for nine days.
After 48 hours, the 15 patients in the second group had considerably improved and by the end of the nine days, four of the patients were completely cured of Covid-19. The remaining 11 patients were discharged from the ICU to a standard internal medical department where they all fully recovered.
In the second group who did not receive Gammora injections, 14 out of 15 patients died within the same time period and one remained in critical condition.
The statistical results proved that Gammora had cured or significantly improved the condition of coronavirus patients. Zion Medical has also noted that it has received reports from all over the world that HIV patients being treated with Gammora who had contracted the coronavirus made a full recovery.
Dr. Eynat Finkelshtein, chief scientific officer of Zion Medical, told The Media Line that they want to carry out trials with larger groups in Western counties and the company is making efforts to receive approval for treatment with the drug in other countries, with the expectation that the drug’s success in the Congo will help expedite the approval process.
Finkelstein added that critically ill coronavirus patients will also be able to receive Gammora treatments through compassionate use protocols..
The WHO has requested all data and reports about the effectiveness of Gammora as well as samples of the drug.
A sad twist to the story is that Bouity, who together with Mafoundzi are now considered heroes in the Congo, contracted the virus during the trial and died after refusing to use Gammora for himself because he wanted to save the drug stock for the patients in the trial.
“It was a heroic act which saved his patients’ life instead of his own,” Zion Medical stated.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
There are lots of medications that show promise, but after rigorous testing, they prove ineffective. In a general interest publication like YWN, news about these “promising” medications are pointless, as they give a false sense that a cure is coming soon. I suggest you not publish these reports until the promise is on the very-near horizon.