Japanese and Dutch researchers have used sustained interferon alpha to successfully repress the symptoms and growth of severe acute respiratory syndrome in SARS-infected monkeys.
"It is significant that a drug expected to be effective against SARS has been found among those that can be administered to humans," said Masato Tashiro, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan who has taken part in the research.
Tashiro and Albert Osterhaus, a professor at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, will announce the achievement Sunday in the electronic edition of the U.S. medical journal Nature Medicine.
No effective therapy against SARS has been found, and medical doctors have depended on symptomatic therapies for dealing with the infectious disease that killed more 750 people, primarily in Asia, last year.
The researchers infected several crab-eating monkeys with the SARS coronavirus, which was separated from SARS patients in Hong Kong during the SARS outbreak last year, and injected them with sustained interferon alpha.
The monkeys developed almost no symptoms of pneumonia with no growth of the virus seen, he said.
Monkeys that received interferon injections in advance escaped SARS infection after being exposed to the virus, indicating that interferon could also be used as a preventive measure.
Antivirus ribavirin was frequently used for treating patients during the spread of SARS last year.
But the drug has turned out ineffective against SARS. Steroids were also used, but reported findings pointed to dangerous side effects.
Only four SARS-infected people have been found this winter, all in China.