Anti viral tabs, will they help prevent covid? Or treat it if I caught it whilst taking them

[Panickingpavlova]

Just wondering really! I'm vaccinating but just idly wondered if anti viral help with covid?

@Panickingpavlova

Just wondering really! I'm vaccinating but just idly wondered if anti viral help with covid?

Which anti-viral tablets? As far as I know there are none that are approved to treat COVID and wouldn't recommend self-medicating.

There's remdesivir but that's an IV infusion and is recommended for hospitalised patients

I'm not taking the for covid.
I have something else but it is occurred to me would they help with the covid. Just ildy wondering

Ah right, so no probably not sadly!

As far as I know quite a few existing anti-virals have been trialled for COVID, as would be helpful if they could be repurposed, but none have shown efficacy

Oxford is currently trialling Favipiravir, so juries still out on that one though.

No

what's the specific anti-viral you're taking?

Probably not. Most antivirals target specific parts of the virus they treat. Acyclovir targets the DNA polymerase of herpes viruses (some other viruses have DNA polymerases but they are different enough to not be affected). HIV medications target reverse transcriptase, integrate or HIV's protease - these would work to some extent on other retroviruses but not other virus families. Tamiflu targets the neuraminidase protein which is only found in influenza viruses.

There are some that have an effect on some viruses outside of the original target virus bit none of these have been shown to be particularly effective against covid.