Dubai: In what is being hailed by health practitioners as one of the biggest discoveries in five decades in the field of medicine, an international pharmaceutical company has discovered a powerful antiviral drug to treat the deadly disease hepatitis C that will soon be available in the UAE.
Experts in the medical field reacted with excitement at this breakthrough development. “We are very excited and thrilled by this discovery which has far-reaching implications,” said a senior doctor from a leading hospital group in Dubai. ”The mechanism by which this oral drug eliminates the virus in the affected population could hold the key to similar anti-viral medication to eliminate many viral diseases such as other forms of hepatitis, Ebola and, one day, even HIV.”
Dr Chacko George, specialist in Internal Medicine at RAK Hospital, said: “In the case of hepatitis C, 20-30 per cent of the people recover and about the same percentage get chronic liver disease or become carriers and even suffer from cancer. If there is an antiviral drug that can eliminate the virus in about 97 per cent of the first-timers and 93 per cent of those treated earlier, then it is one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of treatment of this disease. This would mean that with this treatment, the infected person will be able to maintain an infection-free state or have such weak copies of the virus which won’t be able to replicate. It would mean a tremendous advancement in the treatment of the disease. It is discoveries like these that keep our medical appetite for discoveries alive.”
The oral drug with the brand name Vikierax, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and is available in the US and Europe, has been registered in the UAE. It will be available within six to eight weeks, according to Dr Ameen Hussain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary of public health policy and licensing sector at the Ministry of Health, who inaugurated the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan (MEAP) regional office of Abbvie, the pharma company that formulated the drug.
“The UAE provides the infrastructure and extends all support to organisations which present innovative and cutting-edge technologies in this sector,” he said. The price of the drug has not been finalised as it is not known if insurance will cover the treatment.
Dr Tamer Farouk, regional medical director of Abbvie, called the development “a dream come true”.
“So far, the only way to treat hepatitis C was with an interferon protocol,” he said. “This medicine, which is also used in the treatment of cancers, works to suppress the virus so that it does not replicate at the same speed. It was able to reduce the viral load and make the infection less pronounced. It had a success rate of only 30-40 per cent, with many people reporting relapses. Besides that it had serious side-effects on the bone marrow and compromised the immune system. However, Vikierax attacks the Direct Anti-Viral Agents (DAA). Our trials have shown that in 12 weeks of treatment, the drug is able to eliminate the virus completely in 97 per cent of the naïve patients (those who are first-timers) and 93 per cent of the population that has already been under treatment earlier.”
Dr Farouk also said treatment with this drug had minimal side-effects such as headache, nausea, fatigue, that were also seen in the placebo group during the trials. “It is a dream come true for the medical field and might unlock the mysteries of treating diseases with similar origin with progressive research and development in the years to come,” he added.
