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Coronaviruses (CoV) have recently challenged global medicine through their ability to emerge as human pathogens from zoonotic sources, as shown by severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV), the Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV), and most recently the novel CoV (SARS-CoV-2). Although no CoV treatments have been approved, pharmacotherapies studied previously for MERS-CoV may lay the foundation for treatment of difficult cases of COVID-19 (caused by SARS-CoV-2), given the relatedness of these viruses. Three new reports support this approach.
Using a recombinant MERS-CoV engineered to express a reporter nanoluciferase, Sheahan and colleagues now show that remdesivir and interferon beta (IFN-β) have superior antiviral activit…