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The Arbidol Story: How a Clinically Used Antiviral Drug Inhibits Hepatitis C, Ebola, and Zika Virus

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Globally, annual viral epidemics and outbreaks cause millions of cases of severe illness, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. There is a continuing need for development of antiviral drugs that provide effective, affordable, orally administered, and safe approaches to preventing the devastating effects of viruses that cause significant morbidity and mortality, that frequently re-emerge, and which are globally threatening.
The synthetic antiviral drug arbidol (ARB; umifenovir) was developed over 30 years ago to suppress FLU A and B viruses, and is used clinical in several countries, but not in the US. This lecture will review the history of ARB against Influenza virus and summarize data that suggest that ARB inhibits diverse viruses primarily by targeting an essential step during virus entry into cells: the fusion of virus membranes with cellular membranes.

Originally published by UW Video here