Two drugs already in use could be effective in fighting SARS, National Health Research Institutes researchers said yesterday.
The anti-psychotic drug Promazine and Niclosamide, a drug which is used in the treatment of worm infections, may be able to fight the SARS virus, according to the government-run institute.
"After different experiments, we have proved that these two kinds of drugs have a significant effect in inhibiting the replication of SARS-coronavirus," the institute said in a statement.
The drugs would work best if used during the initial stage of a SARS infection, it said.
The institute said it had filed a patent application on May 28 with the US Patent and Trademark Office for the discovery and is now trying to develop a new anti-SARS medicine based on the finding.
Researchers had produced more than 10 new compounds that were effective in controlling SARS-coronavirus based on Promazine's formula, the institute said.
But further experiments were required to test their clinical effects and safety on humans, it said.
SARS killed 774 people out of 8,098 cases worldwide, according to the latest toll of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO on Sept. 26 revised Taiwan's death toll from the epidemic down from 180 to 37 after ruling that 143 of the fatalities had not in fact died from the disease.
A team of researchers, led by Marie Lin (
According to their findings, the severity of SARS was shown to be significantly associated with the HLA-B46 gene found in people across the region.
In an effort to prevent a resurgence of the deadly epidemic this winter, the government will reopen a "Fever Hotline" on Nov. 15 to give consultations to people in doubt about their health.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS