Virginia
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
US medical researchers in Virginia say tests they have carried out on a new drug show that it's the first efficient anti-viral therapy for the common cold - a breakthrough that has eluded the medical world for half a century. The drug, pleconaril, was used in trials involving several thousand people who'd gone to their doctors complaining of cold symptoms. Half were given pleconaril, half a dummy pill; those taking the drug recovered from their cold a day and half faster than the others. The drug worked by stopping a family of viruses called picornaviruses, which cause over half of all colds, from reproducing. There are many products on the market designed to reduce the symptoms of cold infection, but as yet there are none which tackle the virus directly. The company which makes pleconaril has filed the research results with the US government, which it hopes will license the drug.
