title: Antiviral therapies against Ebola and other emerging viral diseases using existing medicines that block virus entry.
abstract: Emerging viral diseases pose a threat to the global population as intervention strategies are mainly limited to basic containment due to the lack of efficacious and approved vaccines and antiviral drugs. The former was the only available intervention when the current unprecedented Ebolavirus (EBOV) outbreak in West Africa began. Prior to this, the development of EBOV vaccines and anti-viral therapies required time and resources that were not available. Therefore, focus has turned to re-purposing of existing, licenced medicines that may limit the morbidity and mortality rates of EBOV and could be used immediately. Here we test three such medicines and measure their ability to inhibit pseudotype viruses (PVs) of two EBOV species, Marburg virus (MARV) and avian influenza H5 (FLU-H5). We confirm the ability of chloroquine (CQ) to inhibit viral entry in a pH specific manner. The commonly used proton pump inhibitors, Omeprazole and Esomeprazole were also able to inhibit entry of all PVs tested but at higher drug concentrations than may be achieved in vivo. We propose CQ as a priority candidate to consider for treatment of EBOV.
authors.affiliation: Section of Virology, St Mary's Campus, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: Viral Pseudotype Unit (Fitzrovia), Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, London, W1W 6UW, UK.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Viral Pseudotype Unit, School of Pharmacy, University of Kent, Chatham Maritime, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK.
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molesti
authors.affiliation: Viral Pseudotype Unit, School of Pharmacy, University of Kent, Chatham Maritime, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK.
authors.forename: Nigel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Temperton
authors.affiliation: Section of Virology, St Mary's Campus, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Barclay
keywords: H5N1; Marburg; avian influenze; chloroquine; ebola; emerging viral disease; esomeprazole; omemprazole