The current COVID scenario has seen a lot of upsurge in the past two months causing widespread death in India and abroad. This pandemic has strained our health services and economy to a deplorable level. Even today, many parts of our country are in a lockdown with restricted facilities adding more to the problem. As we say ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’, vaccines have appeared as the silver line in this dense cloud and we are at the fastest vaccination rate all over the world, but the rate seems slower if we look at our huge population.
In such unprecedented times, the need was to develop an effective medicine that would be inexpensive and can also be produced at a rapid rate, This is the time DRDO entered the scenario, to revolutionise the medical industry with its ‘Institute of Nuclear medicine and Allied sciences (INMAS)’ at work and a medicine named 2-DG was produced in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Labrotaries in Hyderabad. The medicine got its emergency use permission by DGCI on 1 May, as an adjunct therapy in moderate to severe COVID-19 patients.
Normally when we hear of DRDO it is about an organization developing missiles, weapons and safety equipment but this time the organization along with its subsidiary bodies and partner companies has come up to save the nation from the biggest issue which we are facing.
Here we are compiling few important facts which we need to know about the “Magic Medicine” :
- Name and type of medicine: The medicine is named 2-DG an acronym for 2-Deoxy-D-glucose, and it gets its name from the chemical composition of the drug. The medicine is an Anti-COVID oral drug, developed for oral use and is a generic medicine.
- Developing bodies: The medicine has been developed by DRDO, the Institute of Nuclear medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) and Dr Reddy’s Labrotaries in Hyderabad.
- Clinical trials: The medicine has gone through 3 phased trials over 6 months before being granted emergency use permission from the DGCI. The early trials started with the experiments of DRDO along with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology(CCMB) in April 2020. After getting satisfactory results the medicine was moved to phase II trials conducted from May-October 2020, conducted over 17 hospitals all over the country. The phase III trials began in November 2020 with over 220 patients.
- Results of Trials: The medicine showed satisfactory results in the trials with the patients administered with 2-DG recovering faster as compared to other patients. A higher proportion of negative RTPCR conversion was observed in patients. The efficacy trends, in the patients treated with 2-DG, showed faster symptomatic cure as compared to other standard cure endpoints.
- Requirement of Oxygen: The patients treated with 2-DG showed rapid improvement and became free from Supplemental Oxygen Dependance indicating an early relief from oxygen therapy.
- State in which trials were conducted: The states in which trials were conducted include hospitals from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
- Mode of Action: The drug comes in powdered form in a sachet and can be dissolved in water and taken orally. It works by accumulating in the virus-infected cell and thus prevents virus growth by inhibiting viral synthesis and energy production.
- Unique feature: The selective accumulation of drugs in virally infected cells make it a unique drug as compared to other treatment protocols.
- Production and cost: The medicine is a generic drug that is easy to produce and can be produced in plenty of quantities at a lower rate, which surely will help in our battle with the pandemic.
- Implications of medicine: The implication of discovering such medicine is positive for India, as it reestablishes our position in the technology and innovation sector. It also reaffirms the position of DRDO as a saviour in unprecedented times be it peace or war.
