Recently, there is a saying that has begun to spread on the Internet and in the circle of friends, "the new crown is not a big flu, but a small number of AIDS". Some people even vowed that "many new crown drugs are actually used as anti-AIDS drugs".
Here we first talk about the conclusion: the new crown virus is not "small AIDS"!
The new crown virus is not "trumpet AIDS"!
In June 2022, Zhao Ren, vice president of Ruijin Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, introduced in an interview with the news, "The new coronavirus of Omicron BA2, it has two functions, one similar to SARS function, and one similar to AIDS, which has an inhibitory function with obvious immune effects. Therefore, during the onset of this part of the patient, at the peak, his lymphocyte count is very low, and his lymphocyte count is closely related to his prognosis. ”
Is the new coronavirus related to HIV? Let's take a look at some of the differences between the onset of the two:
1. The pathogenesis is different
First of all, HIV is not a coronavirus, and AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Compared with other diseases, the biggest difference between HIV is that it attacks the human immune system, taking the most important CD4T lymphocytes in the human immune system as the main target of attack, destroying the cells in large quantities, making the human body immune function deficient to varying degrees. Untreated infected people are prone to various serious infections and malignant tumors in the advanced stage of the disease.
The full name of the new coronavirus is "new coronavirus". When the Omicron strain invades the human body, the first to be violated is the respiratory system, that is, the upper respiratory tract, and symptoms such as dry cough, phlegm, and sore throat usually occur. But it does not destroy the body's immune system like HIV, causing immune deficiency. After the new crown virus is cured, it does not lead to the susceptibility to other diseases, and the new crown virus can be cured.
2. The route of transmission is different
AIDS is contracted through three routes: sexual transmission, mother-to-child transmission and blood-to-blood transmission. In daily life, shaking hands, hugging, courtesy kissing, etc. with AIDS patients is not contagious; The use of public facilities such as telephones, handrails, swimming pools, etc., which have been used by AIDS patients, will not cause infection; Coughing, sneezing, etc. also do not transmit AIDS, nor do mosquito bites.
The route of infection is mainly through the respiratory tract, and it can be transmitted through the air and objects as vectors. People infected with the new crown virus will excrete the virus into the outside air through breathing, sneezing, spitting, etc., and the virus floats in the air with droplets, and if it is sucked into the respiratory tract by normal people, it will cause infection. If the virus is touched by healthy people on the surface of objects, it may stick to the hands of healthy people, and if healthy people's hands are close to the mouth and nose, they may suck the virus into the respiratory tract, which will also cause viral infection.
3. Treatment options are different
AIDS, unlike other diseases, is most important in that it cannot be cured at present. At present, there is no effective drug in the world that can completely kill HIV, so AIDS cannot be completely cured. At present, drug treatment is mainly to control HIV and avoid complications.
The new crown virus can be completely cured, for people with normal immune function and no underlying diseases, they can be cured after taking some drugs to relieve symptoms (fever medicine, cold medicine, cough medicine), or taking new crown drug treatment.
And there is not enough evidence to prove that the new crown virus will have lifelong effects on the immune system like AIDS, and the new crown virus will not exist in the human body for a long time.
Why COVID treatment drugs
Is it also a drug related to HIV treatment?
On January 6, 2023, the National Health Commission and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine issued the "Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Novel Coronavirus Infection (Trial Version 10)", and azvudine, nematevir tablets/ritonavir tablets combination packaging (paxlovid) were included in antiviral therapy. Azvudine, ritonavir in Paxlovid are all drugs for the treatment of AIDS, why can they be used to treat the new coronavirus?
"Although the new crown virus is different from HIV, it belongs to the same RNA virus, and all use RNA as genetic material, so some drugs for the treatment of AIDS are the same as the target of the new crown." Zhang Yatong, deputy director of the Department of Pharmacy of Beijing Hospital, told the People's Daily Health Client on January 10, 2023.
Before it was approved to treat the new crown, azvudine was a drug for the treatment of AIDS. In July 2021, azvudine was approved for marketing as an anti-AIDS drug, which is the world's first dual-target anti-AIDS innovative drug. Pfizer's new crown drug nematevir tablets/ritonavir tablets combination package is a combination package, including nematevir tablets, ritonavir tablets, of which ritonavir is a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease inhibitor, also used in anti-HIV drugs, but in this combination package is mainly used to delay the metabolism of CYP3A4 to nematevir and maintain the effective blood concentration of nematevir in the body.
"The mechanism of action of global anti-new coronavirus drugs can be summarized into two categories, one is to prevent the virus from binding to the host cell, and the other is to prevent the production of new viruses in the host cell, such as 3CL and RdRp." Zhang Yatong said, "Pfizer's nematevir tablets/ritonavir tablets combination package uses 3CL, and the mechanism of action is to inhibit the action of 3CL protease, thereby preventing a series of subsequent replication activities of the virus. ”
It can be seen that the new coronavirus and HIV are different from the virus itself, to the pathogenesis, transmission route, and treatment plan, and there is no connection. So the new crown virus is not "trumpet AIDS"! Such "rumors" are just creating anxiety, don't believe it!
Source: Health Times WeChat public account