“Big Flu”? “Small AIDS”? What exactly is COVID-19?

Recently, a saying has been spreading on the Internet and in WeChat Moments: "COVID-19 is not a large-scale flu, but a small-scale AIDS." Some people even confidently pointed out that "many COVID-19 drugs were originally used as anti-AIDS drugs." Is there any basis for this statement? What kind of virus is COVID-19?

In fact, the new coronavirus is the new coronavirus. It has been three years. There is no need to use the likes of influenza or AIDS to help understand it. It is just like after everyone has been eating pizza, there is no need to say that pizza is a large pie.

However, I personally think it is unreasonable to use the argument that "many COVID-19 drugs were originally used as anti-AIDS drugs" to prove that COVID-19 is a smaller version of AIDS. Let's talk about it below.

01. Anti-AIDS drugs?

Let's talk about this "anti-AIDS drug" first. This should refer to RdRp drugs.

The full name of RdRp is RNA-dependent RNA polymerase ( RdRp ), which is RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP).

It's a bit confusing. To put it simply, RNA needs to replicate (the virus needs to amplify itself after infection). One idea is to use RNA as a template to replicate RNA, and this replication process requires an enzyme, which is RdRp.

Therefore, if this enzyme can be interfered with, then the replication of the new coronavirus can theoretically be inhibited. If the replication of the new coronavirus is inhibited, it will not be able to continue to expand and infect more places, and can only wait to be killed by the human immune system. Therefore, there are currently some drugs that target RdRp [1].

However, RdRp is widely present, not only in the new coronavirus, but also in HIV, so many people think it is a small version of HIV.

The genomes of many RNA viruses contain RdRp encoding content, not only the new coronavirus, but also HIV, so inhibiting RdRp can also be used to fight AIDS.

In fact, it is not just RNA viruses; some eukaryotic organisms also contain RdRps involved in RNA interference, which are structurally different from those of viruses.

02. Other ideas

However, there are other ideas for COVID-19. For example, this is a possible route for intervention against COVID-19 proposed in Science.

For example, another popular class of drugs is called 3CL inhibitors.

3CL, itself stands for C30 endopeptidase/3-chymotrypsin-like protease, which means C30 endopeptidase or 3-chymotrypsin-like protease. 3C refers to C protease (3Cpro), an important class of proteases found in coronaviruses (Mpro; EC 3.4.22.69).

The important function of this enzyme is also replication. It plays an important role in the processing of coronavirus replicase (P0C6U8). Therefore, the replication of the new coronavirus can also be inhibited by inhibiting this enzyme.

Therefore, there are many drugs currently targeting this target. In addition, there are also drugs that directly target the binding protein of the new coronavirus, that is, ACE2, which is also a way to deal with the new coronavirus.

In general, it can be seen that it is inappropriate to use analogies based on similar drugs.

Of course, some people may tend to understand the new coronavirus by thinking that it continuously weakens immunity and causes the human body to deteriorate. That is another way of saying it, at least it is not very relevant to what is mentioned in the title.

As I said, COVID-19 is COVID-19. It has been three years and most people have seen it. There is no need to make any analogies because analogies often distort the truth.

Elfiky, Abdo A. "Ribavirin, Remdesivir, Sofosbuvir, Galidesivir, and Tenofovir against SARS-CoV-2 RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp): A molecular docking study." Life sciences253 ​​(2020): 117592.