Coronaviruses roadmap:
Control Strategies
Roadmap for the development of disease control strategies for coronaviruses
Download 202410 Draft Coronavirus Disease control research roadmap FinalB
Therapeutics
Therapeutics
Research Question
- Developing affordable antiviral therapeutics for a wide range of animals effective in wildlife, pets and livestock
Research Gaps and Challenges
- Administering antiviral therapeutics to wildlife populations is challenging due to the unknown infection status of animals. Moreover, regulations/protections for certain species can restrict access
- Cost of therapeutics for livestock systems inhibits widespread use, especially for those in low- and middle-income regions
- A societal behaviour of preserving therapeutics for human, companion animal or high value animal use in an effort to reduce antiviral resistance development could restrict its use in wildlife populations
- Inappropriate use of therapeutics could result in antiviral drug resistance as well as a risk of environmentally acquired antiviral drug resistance
Solution Routes
- Increase the efforts toward basic science to develop affordable antivirals or evaluate the re-purposing of existing therapeutics, that are then validated against wildtype coronaviruses
- Define therapeutics strategies for different host species, and conduct social studies for acceptability of the interventions
- Basic science to study novel drug combinations that may enhance antiviral activities and mitigate the risk of antiviral drug resistance
Dependencies
- Conducting basic science in models of wildlife animals will require the development of appropriate tools (e.g. novel cell lines or 3D cultures) for wildlife species. This is currently a limiting factor that hinders our progress
- Residues of several drugs may pose high ecotoxicological risk in receiving waters – studies into the long-term ecological impacts of therapeutic control tools are needed
Projects
What activities are planned or underway?
Differential susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 in animals : Evidence of ACE2 host receptor distribution in companion animals, livestock and wildlife by immunohistochemical characterisation
Planned Completion date 26/07/2021
Participating Country(s):
Netherlands
Veterinary Biocontained facility Network for excellence in animal infectiology research and experimentation
Planned Completion date 28/02/2023
Participating Country(s):
Europe