Valley doctors testing medication combination in COVID-19 treatment clinical trial

Doctors and genetic researchers in the valley came up with a new treatment that could help COVID-19 patients heal faster and reduce the severity of their symptoms.

PHOENIX - Doctors and genetic researchers in the valley came up with a new treatment that could help COVID-19 patients heal faster and reduce the severity of their symptoms.

It’s a combination of two drugs already used to treat other infections and clinical trials began at three Honor Health hospitals.

The medications being tested are atovaquone, which is used to prevent malaria, and azithromycin, a common antibiotic.

25 COVID-19 patients in the valley will be part of the first trial in Arizona.

"Atovaquone would have anti-viral activities and the azithromycin is known to have antiviral [effects] on respiratory epithelial cells," explains Dr. Michael Gordon, Honor Health Medical Research Institute Medical Director.

He says the combination of the anti-malaria drug and the antibiotic would be given to patients with moderate to severe symptoms for at least 10 days.

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Honor Health is teaming up with genetic scientists at TGen, to track how well the treatment is working in patients.

TGen’s genomic testing allows researchers to track the levels of the virus.

"We can use it to count the virus in a sample. What we want to understand as the person recovers, how does the viral load drop?" explained Dr. David Engelthaler with TGen.

He says studies have shown the combination is safer than hydroxychloroquine, another anti-malarial drug that was tested to treat COVID-19 patients.

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Doctors say atovaquone works by attaching to the structure of the COVID-19 virus, blocking it from replicating and taking over healthy cells.

So far, one current ICU patient with severe symptoms is enrolled in the clinical trial. She’s been on the medications for about a week and doctors say it’s still too early to tell how well the treatment is working.

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