Dr. Oz gives 4 COVID-19 treatment options to kill virus early
Dr. Mehmet Oz provides four ways people can build their immunity in their system to combat coronavirus
Dr. Mehmet Oz reviewed Tuesday the treatments being used to combat the coronavirus and for building up the body's immunity.
“The first thing is, you build up your innate immune system,” Oz told “Fox & Friends.”
“You can enhance the immune system with convalescent plasma therapy,” Oz said, explaining that the process involves giving antibodies made from a recovered coronavirus patient to another who is ill from the virus.
"That seems to jumpstart them," Oz said, referring to the patient's own resources.
Oz said that "high-dose vitamin C" might play a role in building immunity as well, but said the "jury is still out" on the effectiveness.
SCIENTISTS OFFER HOPEFUL NEWS ON COVID-19 VACCINE BASED ON VIRUS' MUTATION RATE
As far as treatment, Oz said that preventing the virus from getting into the cells by taking hydroxychloroquine is showing promising signs in hospitalized patients.
“That’s the malaria drug, we believe that’s one of the mechanisms which can play a role.”
The Food and Drug Administration has put in place an emergency-use authorization to try these drugs despite the lack of conclusive evidence of their effectiveness. Politico, citing three officials, reported that the move would allow more manufacturers to produce the drugs.
Oz also said a dose of zinc can help. Not only can the coronavirus be blocked from getting into the body’s cells, but it can also be blocked from replication.
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Oz cited the drug remdesivir as being a promising method of blocking viral replication. He said the jury is out on whether the drugs lopinavir and ritonavir are effective.
“These are promising therapies. Some of them have not shown the efficacy to the degree we’ve desired but these were designed for other illnesses like HIV and ebola. Now they’re being utilized in a more aggressive fashion in these different trials because, in theory, they should work," he explained.
Oz said the drugs pirfenidone and aviptadil may prevent the inflammatory system from overreacting to the virus and are in the experimental phase.
“The complement storm, so to speak, when the body just can’t keep up with the virus,” Oz said.
Though both of these drugs are “experimental,” they worked on other “horrible infections” and are promising for fighting coronavirus.
Oz also said that Losartan, a blood pressure medication, works at the same receptor that the virus uses to sneak in the body's cells, but said the jury is out and more study is needed.
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Meanwhile, in a joint study by the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), the National Strategic Research Institute at the University of Nebraska and others, researchers found genetic material from COVID-19 in air samples both inside and outside of confirmed coronavirus patients’ rooms. The findings offer “limited evidence that some potential for airborne transmission exists," researchers said, though they warned that the findings do not confirm airborne spread.
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