Рreventive efficacy of interferon -2b in the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health crisis and is still causing enormous economic damage. The amount of infected people has already exceeded 48 million, and more than 1 million deaths have been registered. A steady increase of new cases of COVID-19 is currently observed on the territory of the Russian Federation. The new coronavirus infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus has some clinical and immunopathogenetic features. SARS-CoV-2 is a single-stranded RNA-containing virus that belongs to the family Coronaviridae, the genus Betacoronavirus. COVID-19 can be asymptomatic, the most common clinical manifestation is viral pneumonia, the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome is noted in less than 5% of cases. The entrance gate of the pathogen is the epithelium of the upper respiratory tract and epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tract. When the virus enters the human respiratory tract, there is a suppression of the activity of mucocillar clearance and the death of epithelial cells, which allows the virus to enter the peripheral blood, followed by damage to target organs (lungs, digestive tract, heart, kidneys). An important pathogenetic value in SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in severe disease, is an excessive response of the immune system with a massive release of cytokines, which causes acute respiratory distress syndrome. Research has shown that SARS-CoV-2 can be more sensitive to type I interferons (IFN-I) than other types of coronaviruses. IFN-I deficiency plays a key role in the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 and delayed signaling of IFN-I is associated with sustained virus replication and serious complications, as shown in several studies. The use of drugs in this group for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 is an urgent issue to study. The use of recombinant interferon-α-2b for the prevention of acute viral infections has been successful in multiple studies. This study was conducted to determine the preventive effectiveness of interferon α-2b with an antioxidant complex in health care workers who have direct contact with those infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We observed 109 medical workers who had contact with COVID-19 patients during a month. For prophylactic purposes, 75 medical workers took interferon-α-2b with an antioxidant complex (vitamins E and C) for prophylactic purposes in various regimens for 10 days, and in the comparison group was 34 medical workers without preventive treatment. Only 5.3% of medical workers who received preventive therapy with interferon α-2b were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus after 20 days, while 32.4% of medical workers in the comparison group were infected with the covid-19 coronavirus. The data obtained indicate a high preventive activity of Viferon against a new coronavirus infection. 

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