<p class="title">Scientists have found that a drug used to treat Hepatitis C may also be effective in treating people infected with Zika virus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">According to the findings, the repurposed drug effectively protected and rescued neural cells infected by the Zika virus - and blocked transmission of the virus to mouse foetuses.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"There has been a lot of work done in the past year or so to address the Zika health threat. Much of it has focused on developing a vaccine, with promising early results," said Alysson Muotri, from the University of California - San Diego in the US.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"But there is also a great need to develop clinical strategies to treat Zika-infected individuals, including pregnant women for whom prevention of infection is no longer an option," Muotri said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">For the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers investigated an antiviral drug called sofosbuvir, approved and marketed under the brand name Sovaldi to treat and cure hepatitis C infections.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The drug works by inhibiting replication of the hepatitis C virus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">They noted that both hepatitis C and Zika belong to the same viral family and bore strong structural similarities that could make sofosbuvir effective against the latter.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In addition, it had been reported that sofosbuvir was protective against Zika in different cell types.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In tests using human neural progenitor cells (NPCs) - self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate neurons and other brain cell types - the scientists found that exposure to sofosbuvir not only rescued dying NPCs infected with the Zika virus but restored gene expression linked to their antiviral response.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In subsequent tests using an immunodeficient mouse model infected by Zika, intravenous injections of sofosbuvir significantly reduced viral loads in blood serum compared to a placebo group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Moreover, foetuses of Zika-infected pregnant mice did not show detectable Zika virus amplification in the sofosbuvir- treated group.</p>
<p class="title">Scientists have found that a drug used to treat Hepatitis C may also be effective in treating people infected with Zika virus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">According to the findings, the repurposed drug effectively protected and rescued neural cells infected by the Zika virus - and blocked transmission of the virus to mouse foetuses.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"There has been a lot of work done in the past year or so to address the Zika health threat. Much of it has focused on developing a vaccine, with promising early results," said Alysson Muotri, from the University of California - San Diego in the US.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"But there is also a great need to develop clinical strategies to treat Zika-infected individuals, including pregnant women for whom prevention of infection is no longer an option," Muotri said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">For the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers investigated an antiviral drug called sofosbuvir, approved and marketed under the brand name Sovaldi to treat and cure hepatitis C infections.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The drug works by inhibiting replication of the hepatitis C virus.</p>.<p class="bodytext">They noted that both hepatitis C and Zika belong to the same viral family and bore strong structural similarities that could make sofosbuvir effective against the latter.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In addition, it had been reported that sofosbuvir was protective against Zika in different cell types.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In tests using human neural progenitor cells (NPCs) - self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate neurons and other brain cell types - the scientists found that exposure to sofosbuvir not only rescued dying NPCs infected with the Zika virus but restored gene expression linked to their antiviral response.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In subsequent tests using an immunodeficient mouse model infected by Zika, intravenous injections of sofosbuvir significantly reduced viral loads in blood serum compared to a placebo group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Moreover, foetuses of Zika-infected pregnant mice did not show detectable Zika virus amplification in the sofosbuvir- treated group.</p>