Gay Men Took the Lead in the Fight Against Coronavirus...In the 1980’s
In the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic, the CDC would publish a number that became known as “the butcher’s bill”. It denoted the human toll that fell most hard on gay men.
It was a figure that few outside the gay community cared to glance at until much later in the epidemic, when celebrities that were household names became infected. It was only then that the notion dawned on the broader public that HIV might have implications outside what was viewed as a disposable community.
Three years after the first cases were identified, a test became available. It was nearly a decade before even rudimentary treatments, and fifteen years until the first crude “cocktail” therapies revolutionized HIV care. Times have certainly changed.
The science developed in that fight, as belated as it was, revolutionized not only treatment of HIV, but had implications for cancer treatment and a host of other viruses.
Today, that science is hard at work on another public health threat. Lost among the daily onslaught of panic inducing headlines about the Coronavirus was a snippet of a story you might have missed if you blinked.
As China faced a mounting wave of infections that were rapidly overwhelming their regional medical treatment facilities, testing began on a rather novel treatment approach - HIV medications were being administered to groups of patients who had tested positive for Coronavirus.
Why HIV medications though?
It was a somewhat “out of left field” moment that a journalist uninitiated to the fineries of treating HIV would simply dismiss as some random, perhaps desperate shot in the dark. But for those aware of the roots of their HIV meds, the notion made complete sense.
HIV is a virus that uses RNA as its viral material. Coincidentally, so does the Coronavirus, and as such, they both share certain (but not all) phases of their life cycle. Both HIV and Coronavirus require the use of a family of enzymes called protease to generate infectious copies. Without it, the viral RNA is essentially rendered inert.
In HIV treatment, protease inhibitors that block the particular stage in the viral lifecycle are combined with other drugs in a “cocktail” to avoid the virus’ ability to mutate past such therapies.
Since the Coronavirus shares aspects of the viral lifecycle that are targets for HIV medications, it was reasoned that these medications may have the ability to intervene and at least slow the virus until the human immune system could take over.
That hunch, it seems may in fact be correct, though data is still being gathered. *IF* it is true, the implications could have a dramatic impact on what is shaping up to be the most deadly pandemic since HIV itself.
But the irony is almost mind bending.
Granted, this is all preliminary, but it may be, that the deaths of millions of gay men, ultimately yielded a set of treatments, or at least the science needed to combat a global pandemic that threatens everyone, gay and straight alike.
See excerpt at the bottom of the page on the science behind this story...
For a community that literally had to storm into public events and throw blood at people to get attention and research dollars, the lesson to the broader public may be important enough to write in stone.
“What you do to the least of us, you do unto me”.
The tardy effort to save generations of gay men, may now be forming the basis of a global salvation from a newer butcher. And it would come at the hands of China, a country that originally viewed HIV as a consequence if Western decadence. That also would have a certain irony unto itself.
Time will tell if this method of treatment is effective or can be realistically deployed in this situation. Certainly, if the US was playing its normal role of international leadership as it has in the past, the chances of a coordinated response would be higher. But it is tantalizing for those who survived to think that millions of AIDS deaths may have been worth something more than anyone realized at the time.
Timothy P. Holmberg is a former staff reporter and contributor to the Gay & Lesbian Times, SD LGBT Weekly and San Diego Free Press. He currently writes independently on politics and LGBT issues.
Lead Photo: Generic Corona Virus via Pixabay
The Science Behind the Story
From ScienceNews
HIV and hepatitis C are both RNA viruses that need a protease to cut proteins free from long chains. Drugs that inhibit those proteases can reduce levels of the HIV and hepatitis C viruses to undetectable. Some of those drugs are now being tested against the new coronavirus in clinical trials in China.
The HIV drug Kaletra, also called Aluvia, is a combination of two protease inhibitors, lopinavir and ritonavir. Kaletra’s maker, the global pharmaceutical company AbbVie, announced on January 26 that it is donating the drug to be tested in COVID-19 patients in China. Kaletra will be tested alone or in combination with other drugs. For instance, researchers may combine Kaletra with Arbidol, a drug that prevents some viruses from fusing with and infecting human cells. Arbidol may be tested on its own as well.
But the HIV drugs may not work against the new virus because of two differences in the proteases. The coronavirus protease cuts proteins in different spots than the HIV protease does, say Guangdi Li of the Xiangya School of Public Health of Central South University in Changsha, China, and Erik De Clercq, a pioneer in HIV therapy at KU Leuven in Belgium. Secondly, the HIV drugs were designed to fit a pocket in HIV’s protease that doesn’t exist in the new coronavirus’s protease, the researchers reported February 10 in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
Yet a few anecdotal accounts suggest the HIV drugs may help people with COVID-19 recover. Doctors at Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok reported in a news briefing February 2 that they had treated a severely ill 70-year-old woman with high doses of a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir and the anti-influenza drug oseltamivir, which is sold as Tamiflu. Within 48 hours of treatment, the woman tested negative for the virus.