Did China know the cure for COVID19? Maybe so.
When the China-virus was first unleashed on the world, I had a dear friend who was buying another Russian Blue cat, tell me something interesting. The kitten she was purchasing had been exposed to something called FIP, and the black-market drug the breeder had used in the past was no longer available on the Chinese website she had previously gotten it from.
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a is viral disease that occurs worldwide in wild and domestic cats. Similar to COVID-19, FIP is caused by a type of virus called a coronavirus, which tends to attack the cells of the intestinal wall.
FIP manifests in a “wet” form and a “dry” form. Signs of both forms include fever that doesn’t respond to antibiotics, anorexia, weight loss and lethargy. In addition, the wet form of FIP is characterized by accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity, the chest cavity, or both. Cats with fluid in the chest exhibit labored breathing. Cats with fluid in the abdomen show progressive, non-painful abdominal distension. In the dry form of FIP, small accumulations of inflammatory cells, or granulomas, form in various organs, and clinical signs depend on which organ is affected. If the kidneys are affected, excessive thirst and urination, vomiting and weight loss are seen; if the liver, jaundice. The eyes and the neurologic system are frequently affected, as well.
While previously thought to be a death sentence, over the past 24 months, thousands of cats have reportedly been cured of FIP by a drug called GS-441524 by Gilead (not approved by the FDA but sold on the black-market in China).
Remarkably, GS-441524 is almost identical to a much buzzed-about human drug: Remdesivir, the antiviral currently used in treating COVID-19, also by Gilead. You know, the one President Trump and others have used successfully.
Some background: Remdesivir works by interfering with the cellular machinery that allows viruses to replicate inside a human host. It is a pro-drug, meaning it must be metabolized and undergo a sequence of five bioactivation steps before it becomes GS-441524 triphosphate, the active compound that impedes viral replication.
Gilead’s OTHER antiviral nucleoside analogue is GS-441524, which as its name suggests also converts into GS-441524 triphosphate, but in just in three steps. GS-441524 is easier to synthesize than Remdesivir, requiring three steps instead of the seven needed for Remdesivir.
Researchers initially thought that Remdesivir would be activated more quickly than GS-441524 in human cells infected with the SARS and MERS coronaviruses. Yet data from primary human airway epithelial cells — one of the most clinically relevant cell-based models of the human lung — showed no statistically significant difference in potency between the two compounds. These data align with previous reports on the similar effectiveness of Remdesivir and GS-441524 in coronavirus-infected cat cells. When GS-441524 was used to treat cats with feline infectious peritonitis, a progressive and usually fatal disease caused by a coronavirus, it displayed remarkable safety and therapeutic efficacy, with 96% of cats recovering after treatment.
Should Gilead have ditched Remdesivir and focused on its simpler and safer ancestor GS-441524? Speculation suggests that the fact that Remdesivir can be patented, and therefore monitored longer may have influenced the decision.
Another interesting thing to note is that when COVID-19 FIRST exploded across the world, GS-441524 was no longer available on the Chinese black-market. Is it possible they knew something we didn’t?
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